Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — NYASALAND (EX-ASKARI PENSIONS)

Mr. Hale: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations the result of his inquiries into the disability pensions at present being paid to ex-Askaris in Nyasaland for wounds received before 1954; and, in view of the fact that Her Majesty's Government have a moral responsibility for the pensions of those who retired from Government service before federation despite the transfer of responsibility for defence, if he will keep in touch with the Federal Government regarding their interests.

The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Commander Allan Noble): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave on 26th April to the hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer). The figures quoted by the hon. Member for Deptford were the old minimum rates. I understand that the rates of pensions payable to ex-Askari in Nyasaland are being raised with effect from the 1st July, 1954. The new comparable minimum rates are 12s. and 22s. 6d., as against 7s. and 9s. 4d. It is the responsibility of the Federal Government to decide what the level of pensions should be, and I am sure that we may rely on them to deal sympathetically with these disabled pensioners.

Mr. Hale: Does the hon. and gallant Member really think that to give 9s. a week for total disability is dealing with the matter sympathetically? Is he not aware that, in his answer on 26th April, he promised to look into this matter and make representations? We appreciate there has been some increase. Will he also refer the Government to the fact that

the treatment of Askaris who served this nation during the war has been one of the real causes of disaffection in Africa?

Commander Noble: I do not think there is any difference between the hon. Member and myself. We have the greatest interest in these things. If he has any information or any special case, as I think he inferred, I will be very pleased to look at it.

Oral Answers to Questions — HIGH COMMISSION TERRITORIES (ADMINISTRATION)

Mr. Hale: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations the estimated total cost of the administration of the High Commission Territories expended in South Africa.

Commander Noble: The amount expended annually in the Union on the Territories section of the High Commissioner's Office is £51,000. Figures showing the amounts spent in the Union on the Bechuanaland Protectorate headquarters in Mafeking and on miscellaneous services and supplies by the Governments of the three Territories are not readily available.

Mr. Hale: Would it not be greatly to the advantage of these Territories if this money were spent within the Territories instead of being spent within the Union?

Commander Noble: This Question asks only about cost. The next Question refers to the subject the hon. Member has raised.

Mr. Hale: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations whether, in view of the increase of discriminatory race legislation in South Africa, he will take steps to transfer the headquarters of the High Commission Territories from South Africa to some suitable place within the Territories.

Commander Noble: No, Sir. There is no place in any of the three Territories which would be equally convenient for the other two, and the present arrangement offers greater advantages.

Mr. Hale: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that it is not merely a matter of convenience? In view of the


pressure which, we understand, has been put on the Government within the last day or two for the surrender of these Territories, does not the matter become one the first importance? Is not an excellent way of expressing our disapproval of racial policy in the Union to say that we will have the headquarters of the Territories within the Territories which we control?

Commander Noble: Members of our Diplomatic and Civil Services are often called upon to live in countries where opinions prevailing are much different from their own, but they have no difficulty in maintaining their own identities.

Mr. Dugdale: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that it is necessary for the High Commissioner to perform two completely conflicting duties and that it is quite impossible for him to do so, situated as he is in the capital of the Union of South Africa? He does not visit the Territories as often as he might. Does not the hon. and gallant Gentleman realise that, until the Territories have a capital of their own, they cannot be developed in the manner in which they should be developed?

Commander Noble: I am afraid that I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman. We consider that the present arrangement is to the advantage of the Territories, for inevitably their economic problems are closely connected with those of the Union and they benefit in many ways by the High Commissioner being in close contact with the Union Government. With regard to his not visiting the Territories, he does so as often as he is able, and he is shortly visiting Swaziland.

Mr. Dugdale: Would the hon. and gallant Gentleman think it a good thing for the British Ambassador to America at the same time to be Governor of Jamaica?

Mr. Speaker: That seems a quite different question.

Oral Answers to Questions — COLOMBO PLAN (EXPENDITURE)

Mr. Warbey: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations the amount of United Kingdom

Government expenditure under the Colombo Plan for each financial year since the inception of the plan, taking into account for the current financial year the reduction of £80,000 recently announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Commander Noble: As the Answer consists of a table of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT. He will see that we still plan to spend in the current year considerably more than last year and previous years.

Mr. Warbey: I give my permission with some reluctance, because I believe that if these figures were made available to hon. Members at this moment they would reveal that the contributions made by this country to the Colombo Plan have been pathetically small, and should have been very substantially increased, taking into account the constant rise in prices which has occurred.

Commander Noble: They have been considerably increased since 1951.

Major Beamish: Is my hon. and gallant Friend aware that the excellent progress made under the Colombo Plan receives too little publicity in member countries? Will he say whether some short and well-produced popular films have been considered as a means of giving this matter increased publicity?

Commander Noble: I agree that we can be proud of our contributions to the Colombo Plan, which extend over a very wide field.

Following are the figures:


United Kingdom Government expenditure under Technical Co-operation Scheme of the Colombo Plan


Year
£


1950–51
3,890


1951–52
28,633


1952–53
185,226


1953–54
371,537


1954–55
584,828


1955–56
662,803


(Provisional)


The total provision in the Commonwealth Relations Office and Foreign Office Votes for 1956–57, after the reduction recently announced, is £929,000.

Mr. Warbey: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what precise reductions are being made in expenditure under the Colombo Plan in order to effect a saving of £80,000 in the current financial year.

Commander Noble: The reduction will not affect projects for technical assistance which are already approved. Applications for help not yet approved will be considered in the light of the reduced provision and there may be some slight slowing up. But we expect to be able to continue to meet all well-founded applications which we receive.

Mr. Warbey: In view of the dire need of some countries in these areas, and the growing economic challenge of the Communist countries, is it not really time that the Government made a substantial increase in the British contribution, instead of making these pettifogging reductions?

Commander Noble: If the hon. Member studies the figures which I circulated in answer to a previous Question, he will see that we are increasing our contribution this year by nearly £200,000.

Major Legge-Bourke: Does not my hon. and gallant Friend agree that, in considering the contribution which Britain is making towards helping other countries, we must also take into account the amount which she is contributing by way of Commonwealth and colonial development?

Commander Noble: indicated assent.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

Hire-Purchase Agreements

Miss Burton: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is now in a position to make a statement concerning the type of hire-purchase agreement criticised as improper by Judge Clothier in April and of which he has been informed.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft): The judge described the clause denying any warranty or guarantee in the goods sold as grossly improper and as an attempt to avoid the protection given to the public by the Hire-Purchase Act of 1938. He ruled that the clause had no legal effect. At the Board of Trade's request, the Hire-Purchase Trade Association has now circularised its members, drawing their attention to the relevant provisions of the Hire-Purchase Act, 1938.

Miss Burton: In view of the previous conviction against this firm, when it and its associates were each fined £5,000 with 150 guineas costs in respect of dummy rental agreements, does not the right hon. Gentleman think that it would be useful if the Hire-Purchase Act were amended so that it would be an offence to insert invalid clauses in hire-purchase agreements?

Mr. Thorneycroft: The insertion of an invalid clause has no effect at all. The Hire-Purchase Trade Association has warned its members that this is so.

Rubber Footwear (Imports)

Mr. Dodds: asked the President of the Board of Trade the number of pairs of rubber footwear imported from Hong Kong this year up to the latest convenient date; and what were the comparable figures for 1951 and 1955.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: There were 9·9 million pairs in the first five months of 1956, compared with 1·7 million and 6·0 million in the corresponding periods of 1951 and 1955, respectively.

Mr. Dodds: In view of the tremendous increase, will the right hon. Gentleman state whether there is any limit with regard to the importation of this type of footwear? Is he satisfied that the footwear was produced in Hong Kong?

Mr. Thorneycroft: The Question refers to footwear produced in Hong Kong, and so does the Answer. With regard to a limit, it is not our practice to impose quota restrictions against a Colonial Territory—and we have a very favourable balance of trade with Hong Kong.

Shirts (Imports)

Mr. Dodds: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many cotton shirts have been imported this year up to the latest convenient date; and what were the comparable figures for 1951 and 1955.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: In the first five months of 1956, 4·5 million men's and boys' woven shirts of all materials were imported, compared with 1·0 million and 2·5 million in the corresponding periods of 1951 and 1955, respectively. Cotton shirts are not separately distinguished in the trade returns.

Mr. Dodds: Even though we have a very good trade balance with Hong King, is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that some concern exists about the greatly increased importation of cotton shirts? Will he at least say whether he is satisfied with the situation?

Mr. Thorneycroft: So far as we can judge from the figures, which is difficult when we do not have the precise details available, it looks as though these imports represent less than 5 per cent. of the United Kingdom production. Although there may be some concern about the matter, I cannot regard these as conditions in which I should take some action which was inconsistent with our commercial policy.

Mr. K. Thompson: Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity of informing the British public that neither these cotton shirts nor the rubber boots referred to in an earlier Question compare at all well with similar products produced by British manufacturers in this country?

Mr. Thorneycroft: It is not for me to express an opinion as between different manufacturers, but there is no doubt that Lancashire produces goods of very great quality, and that they are commanding the overwhelming majority of the home market today.

Mr. Bottomley: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any reason why this substantial increase in imports of these cotton shirts has occurred between 1951 and today?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Because more people wish to buy them.

Motor Car Industry

Miss Burton: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the quantity production manufacturers in the motor car industry are demanding that agents selling their cars give up all other products; that many small country town garages are being given ultimatums; that franchises are renewable on 1st August; and if he will now refer this matter to the Monopolies Commission.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: I have received no representations on this matter, though my information is that exclusive sale

arrangements are becoming more common in the motor trade. I see no grounds at present for a reference to the Monopolies Commission.

Miss Burton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the big five, in other words, Ford, the B.M.C., Vauxhall, Rootes and the Standard groups are now demanding that their agents should give up the sale of all other types of cars? Is he further aware that the small town agents, having laid in large stocks of tools and spares, stand to lose money by this? Is he prepared to do anything about it?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Sole agency arrangements are not an unusual feature of English commercial life. I should be quite prepared to consider the matter, and in certain circumstances it might be appropriate for reference to the Monopolies Commission, but I should not be announcing that in advance in any event.

Mr. V. Yates: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he has considered the statement sent to the Government by the British Motor Corporation concerning the trading difficulties of the motor car industry which has necessitated discharging 6,000 employees; and what action he proposes to take to obviate the difficulties specified.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: I have read the Press accounts of the statement made by the British Motor Corporation. I agree that the future of this industry depends on its success in developing export markets. This demands quality products at the lowest possible costs.

Mr. Yates: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the difficulties facing the Austin Motor Company is that it is unable to export spare parts for Austin trucks exported to Turkey owing to exchange difficulties, and, in consequence, spare parts are being manufactured by Germany and exported to Turkey? Is this not an intolerable situation for the manufacturers, and will not the right hon. Gentleman look into the matter?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I am always ready to look into difficulties of this kind regarding any exporting industries, but my feeling is that the difficulties of the British Motor Corporation go a good deal wider than this.

Mr. V. Yates: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will consult the National Advisory Council of the Motor Industry concerning the present crisis in the motor car industry; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Jay: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will now call together the leaders of the motor car industry and launch a new campaign, supported and assisted by the Government, to recapture the export markets lost in the last three years.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: The present situation in the motor car industry was discussed at the meeting of the Advisory Council on 27th June, at which I presided. The proceedings of the Council are confidential. I am satisfied that the leaders of the motor car industry fully appreciate the importance of increasing their exports.

Mr. Yates: I appreciate the fact that at long last the President himself has met this Advisory Council. Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that, in present circumstances, it is reasonable to expect him to make a statement to the House about how far he can assist this industry after the representations made from both sides?

Mr. Thorneycroft: An extensive debate on this matter took place only recently.

Mr. Jay: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that I am trying to help him by my questions and to urge him on? Whatever he may have done in the past, would he not agree that, in present circumstances, he should take some major initiative?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would indicate what it is.

Mr. Drayson: Regarding the promotion of exports, can my right hon. Friend say whether any progress is being made about getting our vehicles into China?

Mr. Thorneycroft: The export of ordinary motor cars to China is altogether free from strategic control.

Mr. Jay: If the President has to ask the Opposition what to do, why cannot he do what Sir Stafford Cripps did in the years after the war?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I hardly think it would be wise to pursue in too much detail the activities of the Socialist Government in the post-war years.

Protective Import Duties

Mr. Holt: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will give the value of all imports on which protective duty was imposed on an ad valorem basis during 1955 shown separately under the relevant Import Duties Acts; and if he will give the amount of protective duty received under each Act which was charged on an ad valorem basis.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: As the Answer contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the Answer:


The value of goods entered for home consumption during 1955 on which protective duties were paid at ad valorem rates, and the amounts of duty charged under the relevant Acts, were as follows:—



£ million



Net value of goods on which duty paid
Amount of duty


Import Duties Act, 1932
468·46*
64·19


Ottawa Agreements Act, 1932
17·26
2·44


Safeguarding of Industries Act, 1921
14·63
5·09


Beef and Veal Customs Duties Act, 1937
18·22*
2·30


Finance Act, 1925 (in respect of silk and artificial silk duties)
21·25
4·94


* The value of goods on which duty was paid under the Import Duties Act, 1932, includes £13·42 million in respect of beef and veal also charged with duty under the Beef and Veal Customs Duties Act, 1937.

Mr. Holt: asked the President of the Board of Trade to give separately the value of protective import duties on food imported into the United Kingdom in 1955 chargeable on a specific basis and an ad valorem basis; and the import value of such dutiable food.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: As the Answer contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the Answer:


The value of imported food which was entered for home consumption on payment of protective duty at ad valorem rates during the calendar year 1955, and the net amount of duty charged at ad valorem and specific rates respectively, were as follows:—


£ million


—
At ad valorem rates
At specific rates (a)


Net value of goods on which duty paid
Amount of duty
Amount of duty


Goods charged under the Import Duties Act, 1932 and falling within Divisions 1–8 and Division 10 of Class A (Food, Beverages and Tobacco) of the Import List
134·99 (b)
14·02
2·84


Foodstuffs charged under the Ottawa Agreements Act, 1932, excluding linseed and linseed oil
12·75
1·78
3·15


Beef and veal charged under the Beef and Veal Customs Duties Act, 1937
18·22 (b)
2·30
1·08


Dried fruit
—
—
0·26


(a) Information regarding values of goods entered at specific rates of duty is not available.


(b) The value of the goods on which duty was paid under the Import Duties Act, 1932, includes £13·42 million in respect of beef and veal also charged with duty under the Beef and Veal Customs Duties Act, 1937.

Soviet Trade Delegation

Mr. Swingler: asked the President of the Board of Trade (1) what steps he has taken since the visit to this country of Marshal Bulganin and Mr. Khrushchev to increase the volume of Anglo-Soviet trade;
(2) if he will make a statement on his discussions with representatives of the Soviet trade delegation about the prospects of improving trade between the United Kiugdom and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: A delegation of Russian experts will arrive in London this week-end to discuss the Soviet purchasing programme submitted during the visit of Mr. Bulganin and Mr. Khrushchev, and I hope that these discussions will result in an increase in our export trade.

Mr. Swingler: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the very welcome increase in some of the figures of Anglo-Soviet trade for the first quarter of this year, particularly in re-exports? Will he do everything to speed these negotiations to a successful conclusion, bearing in mind that in this sphere the abandonment of some controls might be a useful step forward?

Mr. Thorneycroft: The trade which we are seeking to do is outside the strategic controls. We welcome this visit, which will help to clarify the discussions which took place during the visit of Mr. Bulganin and Mr. Khrushchev, and I hope that it will result in an increase in trade.

Petrol Distribution

Miss Burton: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the growth of public concern at the restrictive practices being put into effect in petrol distribution; and if he is now in a position to make a statement on the reference of this matter to the Monopolies Commission.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: I have nothing to add at present to the Answer given to the hon. Lady by my hon. and learned Friend on 17th April.

Miss Burton: That does not get us very much further. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a questionnaire was issued to the public recently by the Motor Accessories Manufacturers' Association, and that 81 per cent. of the people who replied said that petrol should not be sold as a product of just one company? Is the Minister prepared to do something about that?

Mr. Thorneycroft: We debated these matters at some length a short time ago, when I said that this particular range of practices of petrol companies was probably a matter which would be referable to the Monopolies Commission and would fall for consideration when a reference was made—but we do not announce references in advance.

Mr. Lewis: In his first reply, the Minister said that he is not prepared to do anything at the moment. Are we to take it from that that he is considering doing something at a later date?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I am always considering these matters.

Strawberry Pulp

Major Legge-Bourke: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many licences he intends issuing for the importation in 1956–57 of strawberry pulp; what will be their total value; and

1. Strawberry pulp may be imported from the Sterling Area, Western European and certain other countries under the Open General Licence; individual licences are not therefore needed for imports from these countries.


2. The following bilateral quotas for fruit pulps, against which imports of strawberry pulp may be made, have been established for 1956 under Trade Arrangements with Eastern European countries:


Country
Designation of quota
Value of quota
Period covered




£



Poland
Fruit pulp of fruit grown in Poland
25,000
Calendar year 1956.


Hungary
Fruit pulp (other than apricot, peach and pear).
3,125
1st January, 1956, to 31st March, 1956.



Fruit pulp derived from gruit grown in Hungary.
20,000
27th June, 1956, to 26th June, 1957.


Bulgaria
Fruit pulp (other than grapefruit, apricot, peach, pear and pineapple).
150,000
22nd September, 1955, to 30th September, 1956.


3. A bilateral quota may also be established under the Trade Arrangement with Roumania which is still being negotiated.


4. If any applications are made for licences for the import of strawberry pulp outside these quotas, they will be considered on their merits at the time.

Films (Production)

Mr. Swingler: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many first feature films were under production in Britain at the latest date for which figures are available; how this compares with the number under production a year and two years ago, respectively; and if he is satisfied that production is sufficient to enable the present quota to be maintained.

from which countries these imports will come.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: As the Answer involves a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate in it the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Major Legge-Bourke: I am sure that my hon. Friends will consider these figures most carefully. Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there is concern in certain parts of the country, particularly in my constituency, at the slow take-up of the present strawberry crop due to the build-up of the old crop and the prospect of too many imports which would depress the price to the home grower?

Mrs. Mann: What is "strawberry pulp", and for what is it used?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I believe it to be pulp made of strawberries used for jam making.

Following is the Answer:

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: No record of films under production is kept. First-feature film quotas were fixed on the advice of the Cinematograph Films Council, and I see no reason to doubt this advice.

Mr. Swingler: Will not the President make some inquiries into the position? Is not he aware that figures have been published recently in the cinema trade


Press showing a serious drop in film production, and also that some companies are taking their films out of the country because of the lack of studio facilities owing to so many studios having gone out of business? Will he not make some inquiries, because this trend would seriously jeopardise the maintenance of the quota system?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I am making a number of inquiries at the moment into the whole question of film policy, as the hon. Member knows, and I should prefer not to add to my answer at the present moment.

Overseas Visitors (Hotel Accommodation)

Sir R. Robinson: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the number of first-class hotels in London is now inadequate to cater for the needs of overseas tourists visiting the United Kingdom; and what steps he is taking to see that adequate hotel facilities are available to meet the growing demand.

Mr. Gower: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the increase in the number of overseas tourists and United Kingdom visitors to Wales has revealed the inadequacy of suitable hotel accommodation in the Principality; and what steps he is taking to facilitate the provision of adequate hotel accommodation to cater for the increasing demand.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: My Department will be as helpful as it can to anyone who is interested in providing additional hotel accommodation anywhere in Great Britain, which is intended primarily to cater for overseas visitors.

Sir R. Robinson: In view of the continued shortage of hotel space in London, will my right hon. Friend consider calling the attention of American capitalists to this very useful contribution which they could make to our economy?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I have been in touch with a number of Americans, some of whom, though not all, were interested in investing capital in this way.

Mr. Gower: What powers has my right hon. Friend to help? He said that his Department would be "helpful". Will

he bear in mind the Empire Games and other events which are taking place?

Mr. Thorneycroft: My powers certainly do not include putting up public funds for the provision of hotel accommodation.

Mr. Bottomley: Cannot representations be made by the right hon. Gentleman to the Minister of Works so that hotels and buildings of this kind can be provided rather than new petrol stations and other inessential buildings?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Naturally, the Minister of Works and I keep in contact at all times.

Location of Industry

Mr. Jay: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether it is still the policy of the Government to restrain expansion of industry and employment in the Greater London area; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: Yes, Sir. I have nothing to add to the reply made to the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. Hamilton) on 22nd November last.

Mr. Jay: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that recent figures of factory approvals have raised anxiety that the Government may be weakening on what we thought was the non-party policy of restraining the expansion of London, and, if that is so, it will make insoluble the housing situation in the Central London area?

Mr. Thorneycroft: On examination, I think the right hon. Gentleman will find that many of these approvals are extensions of industries which have proved successful in the area. It is difficult, and indeed may be wrong, to refuse industrial development certificates in that situation.

Mr. Jay: Does not the President realise that almost all new factory building is extension, and that if he carried out his doctrine to anything like 100 per cent. we should lose control? I hope he realises that, as I am sure he will if he examines the figures.

German Cloth (British Markings)

Mr. Burden: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that British exports are suffering unfair competition in that tweed cloth made in


Germany is being sold in Scandinavia bearing the description, "Woven in the Highlands", in English on the selvedge; and if he will make representations to the West-East German Governments to have this unscrupulous practice brought to an end.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: I was not aware of this practice, but if my hon. Friend will let me have details, I shall be glad to look into the matter.

Mr. Burden: Has not the attention of my right hon. Friend been drawn to the recent statement by a Bradford manufacturer at the Bradford Round Table that he had actually seen on the selvedge of merchandise made in Germany the words in English, "Made in the Highlands" and that these efforts to imitate such well-known quality articles as Harris tweed cause a great deal of concern to those who manufacture them?

Mr. Thorneycroft: If I could be given full details of the whereabouts of this cloth and who are the manufacturers, I shall be happy to look into the matter.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Will the President also have a look at the alleged "Scotch whisky" made in and exported from Japan?

Exports to India (Textiles)

Mr. Green: asked the President of the Board of Trade by what percentage exports of textiles from this country to India have increased in the past 12 months.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: By 41 per cent. in the 12 months ended May, 1956, compared with the previous 12 months.

Mr. Green: I welcome this increase, but does it not indicate that, given a fair crack of the whip, Lancashire can still make headway in the textile markets? Will he impress this thought on our Indian friends at the present time?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I certainly consider these figures to be encouraging and to indicate that Lancashire can produce quality goods and command these markets. I will bear in mind my hon. Friend's suggestion and the course of action he proposes.

Staff (Salaries and Expenses)

Mr. Lewis: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will publish in HANSARD a list of the persons employed in his Department who have to meet the cost of their postage, secretarial expenses, telephone charges, living away from home, and all other expenses wholly and necessarily incurred in carrying out their duties on behalf of his Department from their State salary.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: There are none, Sir.

Mr. Lewis: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that is the reply I anticipated? Is he further aware that I am very pleased that he does not treat his staff as shabbily as the Chancellor of the Exchequer treats Members of Parliament?

Mr. Thorneycroft: So far as I am aware, I am the only person in the Department who has secretarial expenses and telephone charges and has not the advantage extended to Members of Parliament of being able to charge them against my Income Tax.

Exports to Australia (Tiles)

Dr. Stross: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many reductions in the quota for tiles exported to Australia from Britain have been made during the past 12 months; what is the permitted value for the next annual period as compared with 1950–51; and whether he will make representations to the Australian Government on behalf of the British tile industry for an increased quota.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: There have been four reductions in the quotas for floor and wall tiles and two reductions for other kinds of tiles. Quotas are licensed to importers individually, and comparison with 1950–51 is therefore impracticable; but the quotas have in both cases been reduced by some 60 per cent. over the past 12 months. These cuts, which apply to imports from all sources, have been made necessary by Australia's balance of payments difficulties and, much as we regret it, we cannot reasonably question the Australian Government's decision to take such action.

Dr. Stross: Does not the President agree that even the 1950–51 period was a


poor year for exports of tiles? Is it not possible to make representations to our friends in Australia, who, after all, provide our best market?

Mr. Thorneycroft: As the hon. Member knows, I am at present in conversation with the Australian Minister of Commerce on the whole question of our trade relations.

Mr. Stokes: Is not the real fact that the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the rest of the Government have a completely "phoney" idea of the use of credit?

Domestic Pottery (Exports)

Dr. Stross: asked the President of the Board of Trade, in view of the fall in the volume of exports of domestic pottery for the first five months of 1956 as compared with the corresponding period in 1955, what steps he will take to stimulate an improvement in these exports.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: My Department continues to give all the assistance it can to the domestic pottery industry in export matters, but success must depend in the main on the efforts which the industry itself is making to obtain more export business.

Dr. Stross: Will not the President at least inform the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the savage imposition of 30 per cent. Purchase Tax has meant that fine bone china is not being exported to the same extent that it was; that it has disappeared from home consumption; that workers and craftsmen are leaving the industry, and what the motor car industry has suffered is what we in the pottery industry are now suffering?

Cyprus Potatoes (Imports)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the President of the Board of Trade what quantities of Cyprus potatoes were imported into Scotland in June.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: The trade figures for June are not yet available.

Mr. Hughes: Has the Minister no consideration or sympathy for Ayrshire farmers whose crops are increasing this year but whose markets have been ruined by imports from Cyprus. They want to know why the right hon. Gentleman is subsidising terrorism in Cyprus and Imperialist deportations to the Seychelles?

Mr. Thorneycroft: The only case I am sustaining is that the figures for June are not available.

Captain Duncan: What are the figures of imports from Cyprus for May? How much was imported in May?

Mr. Thorneycroft: The total of new potatoes imported was 93,000 cwts. in May, 1956.

Factory, Shotts

Miss Herbison: asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he proposes to take to find alternative industry for the factory in Shotts which will be vacant as a result of the decision of Francis Sumner and Company Limited.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: No definite decision has been conveyed to me by the tenant. But, on the assumption that the factory may shortly be vacant, we are doing all we can to interest prospective tenants in it.

Miss Herbison: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, on Monday of this week, I had a letter from the firm saying that it had decided to terminate the lease? Surely that decision would be given to the Minister's Department in Scotland. Will the Minister give me an assurance that from this moment, now that he knows the decision is taken, every step will be pursued to find alternative employment?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I had already started to take steps before the information reached me. The letter has not reached me, but steps are in train at the present time.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Post-War Credits

Mr. Teeling: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will instruct the Brighton tax collectors not to issue a distress warrant in the case, particulars of which the honourable Member for Brighton, Pavilion, has forwarded to him, in view of the fact that more is owed by the Government in this case than is claimed by the Inland Revenue; and whether he will amend his regulations so that where a person owes less in income


tax than the amount of post-war credits he holds but cannot cash, no proceedings shall be taken against him.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Henry Brooke): No, Sir. The possibility of distraint arose because of the taxpayer's failure to respond to an invitation to call at the collector's office to discuss his debt of some £10, which dates from 1950. My hon. Friend has perhaps not realised that the course he suggests would enable millions of post-war credit holders, by withholding payment of tax, to obtain the equivalent of immediate cash for their credits.

Mr. Teeling: Does my right hon. Friend realise, as I did not realise, until the publicity given to this matter in the Press, how many very small people owing very small amounts of money are being brutally pressed by Income Tax collectors? Does he not think, since all Governments have not done their duty after the war with regard to post-war credits, that either these credits should be impounded and taken against money owing to the Government, if it is less than £45 post-war credits, as in this case, or whatever the sum may be, or that it should in some way be used as a credit and that nothing should be done against the person if he is proved to be in financial difficulties?

Mr. Brooke: I have pointed out to my hon. Friend the difficulty in his suggestion. As to the taking of undue action against this particular taxpayer, when a man leaves a tax debt of £10 outstanding for six years, the collector must do something.

Mr. Teeling: In view of the very unsatisfactory answer, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Members (Salaries)

Mr. Lewis: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the estimated annual saving to the Treasury would be if, similarly to Members of Parliament, all civil servants and State employees had their wages or salaries frozen at their present level and the cost of their postage, telegrams, telephones, stationery, travel, living away from home expenses, secretarial expenses and all other expenses necessarily incurred by them in carrying

out their duties to the State were met from their State or Civil Service pay.

Mr. H. Brooke: The hon. Member's Question reaches out into realms of hypothesis where I find it impossible to frame any reliable estimate.

Mr. Lewis: Is the Minister aware that again I rather thought that would be the sort of reply I would get. Can he explain why there is this differentiation between the Civil Service and Members of Parliament and why, out of all the millions of people in the country, the only ones whom the Government insist should be treated in this way are Members of Parliament?

Mr. Brooke: The hon. Gentleman has a later Question, Question No. 52, which bears on this matter.

Mr. Lewis: On a point of order. The Minister says there is another Question, which may or may not be reached. Is he entitled to say that he will answer a Question which may or may not be reached in answer to a question I have just put to him? Surely he should answer this question.

Mr. Speaker: There is nothing out of order in that.

Mr. Lewis: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that many Members of Parliament were formerly employed in the service of the Crown and may not return to this service while still maintaining their Parliamentary position and salary; and since an increase in Members' salaries has been refused if he will introduce legislation to enable Members to return to their previous employment under the Crown while still maintaining their Parliamentary position and salary.

Mr. H. Brooke: No, Sir. I can indeed perceive difficulties if an individual's duty required him as a civil servant to advise Ministers in private and as a Member of Parliament to criticise them in public.

Mr. Lewis: I also appreciate the difficulty. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it has been said that Members of Parliament should go out and find other income? While that may be all right for hon. Members who can find employment as company directors, lawyers and the like, it is impossible for miners to go


out and dig coal, even if it were physically possible for them to work in the two jobs. If the right hon. Gentleman cannot give the right to go back to their former jobs, will he do something to give an adequate salary to enable hon. Members to carry on this job?

Mr. Brooke: I admire the ingenuity of the hon. Member in framing this Question, but I do not think it is the best way of solving the problem of Members' salaries.

Capital Issues Committee (Applications)

Mr. Peyton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will take steps to minimise the delay in deciding on applications to the Capital Issues Committee.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle): Everyone who handles these applications is anxious that they should be decided as soon as possible, and about half the cases are considered by the Committee within ten days of the application being received.

Mr. Peyton: Would my hon. Friend look at the case, details of which I sent to the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day, in which application has been made for a short-term loan for five months, yet it took six weeks to get the reply? Does he realise that this reduces the whole machinery to a complete mockery and is earning nothing but disrespect for it?

Sir E. Boyle: Yes, I looked most carefully into this case, and I am sorry about it. I am writing to my hon. Friend about it. The trouble was that two Government Departments had to be consulted first.

Mr. Snow: Is the Economic Secretary aware that many people in this House think that the Capital Issues Committee has rather lost its head so far as the motor car industry is concerned?

European Common Market

Mr. Holt: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is yet in a position to make a statement on the Government's policy in regard to the project of a common market in Europe, at present being considered by representatives of Germany, France, Italy, and the Benelux countries.

Sir E. Boyle: My right hon. Friend has nothing to add to the Answer he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir R. Boothby) on 19th June.

Mr. Holt: Is the Economic Secretary not aware that the Government have had plenty of time to think about this problem, and does he not agree that it would be quite disastrous if Europe were to move towards a common market and leave this country isolated outside?

Sir E. Boyle: This is a most important matter, as I think the hon. Member will agree, and too important to debate at Question Time.

Mr. Speaker: The subject is being raised tonight on the Adjournment, I understand.

British Companies (Sale)

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider establishing an independent committee, along the lines of the Capital Issues Committee, to which could be referred applications for the sale to foreign companies of British companies which produce raw materials.

Sir E. Boyle: My right hon. Friend has considered this interesting proposal, but has come to the conclusion that no useful purpose would be served by such a committee. He is satisfied that present arrangements secure for him all the advice he needs in making decisions in these cases.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Would it not be best to have an independent committee looking at these applications from British companies using raw materials and wishing to sell out to foreign companies, particularly having regard to the fact that there is another company, the Trinidad Petroleum Development Company, that is coming forward? Is he also aware that, if the Russians came forward with a big offer of gold for our Malayan rubber fields, I would have no confidence that the Treasury would turn it down?

Sir E. Boyle: Reverting to the question on the Order Paper, my right hon. Friend has considered this proposal carefully and thinks that the weight of advantage is against it.

Mr. Beswick: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that the take-over of British companies by United States concerns is assisted by the Profits Tax concessions made available under the provisions of the Finance Act, 1947; and if he will amend those provisions.

Mr. H. Brooke: Section 39 of the Finance Act, 1947, gives relief from the higher Profits Tax rate on distributions made by a United Kingdom company to a foreign company which controls not less than half its voting power. This relief is in fact the counterpart of reliefs given to United Kingdom companies in corresponding circumstances by the United States and other countries under double taxation agreements. I do not think that its withdrawal would be justified.

Mr. Beswick: While the taxation provisions may be reciprocal, the economic arrangements between the two countries are hardly of a parity today. In view of the fact that in the case of the Trinidad Oil Company about £200,000 of last year's taxation would not have been paid by the American holding company, does he not think that this advantage makes it possible for companies in the United States and elsewhere to make these bids? Does he not think that in the present circumstances there is a case for looking at this matter again?

Mr. Brooke: With respect, I do not think that this would make a substantial difference in the taxation position of the Trinidad Oil Company. I was aware of this point before the hon. Member put it down as a Question and I have given a considered reply, but I grant that it is a matter on which there might be differences of opinion.

Mr. Vane: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that this is another indication that the general level of taxation in this country is too high?

Mr. S. Silverman: When the right hon. Gentleman talks about reciprocity in the law between the two countries, can he tell the House of any instance of an English company which will profit by such reciprocity? Does he know of any English company which proposes to take over any United States concern in the way in which the Trinidad Oil Company was taken over? If so, will he tell us which are these companies?

Mr. Brooke: If I may say so, this Question has very little relevance to the case of the Trinidad Oil Company. There are many United Kingdom companies which are benefiting from the reciprocal arrangements. I would point out to the House that this difficulty would entirely disappear if the Chancellor of the Exchequer were at some time to accept the recommendation of the Royal Commission about having a flat rate of tax instead of a differential tax, and that question is under consideration.

Premium Savings Bonds

Mr. Chetwynd: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will arrange that Premium Bonds can be marked to enable owners who do not wish to receive publicity to state their desires.

Mr. H. Brooke: I would ask the hon. Member to await the further details of the scheme which my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General hopes to make public in a few weeks' time.

Mr. Chetwynd: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that on football pools entrants can mark an X if they do not wish to have publicity? Would it not be a pity if certain people who purchased these bonds changed their minds and later on found that they had won a prize and were subjected to publicity?

Mr. Brooke: I have noted the hon. Member's suggestion, which seems to have intriguing features.

Mr. Osborne: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the tender consciences of hon. Members opposite?

£ Sterling (Value)

Mr. Jay: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what further proposals he has to make for protecting the sterling area's gold and dollar reserve and preserving the exchange value of the £.

Sir E. Boyle: I would refer the right hon. Gentleman to my right hon. Friend's Answer of 12th June and speech of 3rd July, to which I have nothing to add.

Mr. Jay: Will not the Chancellor of the Exchequer be taking a grave responsibility if he drifts on into the difficult autumn months without taking the power recommended this week by the hon.


Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir R. Boothby)? Have the Government power to introduce building licensing without further legislation?

Sir E. Boyle: The right hon. Gentleman knows the answer to that Question very well. It has been discussed on many occasions.

Elderly People (Savings)

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that many elderly people living on small fixed incomes are spending their savings to meet the present cost of living; and, in view of his desire to encourage saving, what steps he proposes to take to give these people an equal chance with those who have money to save to take advantage of the incentives to save.

Sir E. Boyle: My right hon. Friend is very conscious of the difficulties which many such people are experiencing and we have included in successive Budgets specific measures to help them. The best way to help them, however, is to safeguard the stability of the national economy, and that is the main object of our present economic policy.

Dame Irene Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware that that does not answer my Question? Could he give me a specific answer how people who are now spending from savings are to get savings in order to gain the incentive which present-day savers can get? Is he aware that the whole treatment of small-income groups in the past is monstrous? When is he going to take some action about it?

Sir E. Boyle: I feared that my hon. Friend would be at me with her hammers.

Dame Irene Ward: Jolly good ones.

Sir E. Boyle: The Government have twice done something for people with small investment incomes and have also raised the income limit for small-income relief. Safeguarding the stability of the economy is the best service we can render them.

Mr. Jay: Is the Economic Secretary aware that he is not answering any question at all? As it is due to Government policy that the cost of living is rising, will he not give a satisfactory answer to the hon. Lady behind him?

Sir E. Boyle: I thought I gave very satisfactory details.

Dame Irene Ward: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask for your guidance as to how I can give notice to raise this matter on the Adjournment, as it includes legislation and we are not allowed to discuss legislation on the Adjournment?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Lady can give such a notice, but if the matter does include legislation her notice would be ineffective.

Bank Advances

Mr. Dodds: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in view of the difficult economic situation, if he will make a statement in respect of the increase in bank overdrafts by £24 million between January and May of this year; and what action he proposes to take to deal with the matter.

Sir E. Boyle: My right hon. Friend studies the position closely. The total of bank advances in May, 1956 (including of course those to the public utilities) was £205 million less than in May, 1955, and the increase of £24 million between February and May of this year compares with an increase of £95 million in the same period last year. My right. hon. Friend has noted the smaller total increase over the quarter in the face of seasonal trends; and also the signs of a contrast in treatment between, for example, personal overdrafts which fell by £66 million over the year, and the rise in advances to the engineering industries.

Mr. Dodds: Does not the Minister appreciate that the credit squeeze is dealing very harshly with small business men? Is it not also obvious that the big boys, in accordance with Tory tradition, are getting away with it? How much longer is this miserable policy to be continued?

Sir E. Boyle: My impression, and that of my right hon. Friend, is that bank managers have carried out a difficult task with great discretion and skill. The figures I have given today show that it is not true to say that productive investment has taken the brunt of this. On the contrary, personal advances have been squeezed heavily.

Mr. Bence: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a report in the financial columns of a leading newspaper states that one very large manufacturer in the last few months has been able to double his company's overdraft for the mere purpose of holding stocks because of a shortage of sales in the recent credit squeeze? Is it right that bank overdrafts should be used to hold stocks rather than cutting prices to get rid of stocks and allowing overdrafts to people who want to do some productive development?

Sir E. Boyle: It would not be right for me to comment on an individual case, least of all without notice.

Liverpool Savings Organisation

Mr. A. J. Irvine: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the results achieved by the Streets Groups Organisation of the Liverpool Savings Committee, he will take steps to ensure that the methods of the Liverpool organisation are studied, with a view to their wider application in other parts of the country.

Mr. H. Brooke: Yes, Sir. The National Savings Committee has arrangements by which knowledge of successful methods of organisation are quickly brought to the notice of leaders of the movement in all parts of the country. I am glad to recognise the great value of the work done by the keen and energetic savings workers of Liverpool.

Prices (Stabilisation)

Mr. Hunter: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in view of the undertakings given by the boards of nationalised industries that they will not increase prices and charges for a certain period, if he will now issue an appeal to the private sections of industry to take similar action.

Sir E. Boyle: The attitude of the Government in their talks with both sides of industry was defined by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in his reply on 19th June to my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne). My right hon. Friend does not propose to supplement this with specific appeals.

Mr. Hunter: Is the Economic Secretary aware that we can end inflation and lower the cost of living only provided the private sector of industry follows the

example of nationalised industry and stabilises prices over a definite period? Will he press that on his right hon. Friend?

Sir E. Boyle: I fully recognise the sincerity of the hon. Member in these matters, but if he looks back to the Answers of the Prime Minister, I think he will find the answer to that question.

Mr. Fernyhough: Will the hon. Gentleman at least see that the Government, which own a considerable number of shares in the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, use influence with that company to stop it increasing petrol and oil prices within the next 12 months?

Sir E. Boyle: That is not the Question on the Order Paper.

Dog Licences (Postal Reminders)

Mr. Speir: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many representations he has received regarding the desirability of amending Section 6 of the Finance Act, 1908, so as to impose upon county councils an obligation to send out postal reminders to dog owners of the impending expiration of dog licences; and why he has not taken action as a result of such representations.

Mr. H. Brooke: Very few, Sir. I think the issue of such reminders should remain within the discretion of the local authorities, who collect and spend the money.

Mr. Speir: Is it not a fact that benches of magistrates have criticised the procedure and a number of prosecutions have taken place which were quite unnecessary? Is it not a fact that reminders are sent about driving licences, television and wireless licences? Could not that be the common practice in regard to dog licences?

Mr. Brooke: I believe in giving local authorities a good measure of freedom. This matter is entirely their affair. Very small numbers of representations have reached the Treasury. Some are in favour of giving up the practice of sending reminders altogether on the grounds of expense.

Average Income

Mr. Lawson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will prepare an estimate of the average income per head


in Scotland in 1948 and 1955 compared with the average in the same years for England and Wales.

Sir E. Boyle: Not at present. I think this subject has been very competently explored by private researches and I will send the hon. Member some references.

Mr. Lawson: Is the hon. Member aware that a group of economists attached to Glasgow University have published an estimate showing that the average income per head in Scotland is more than 10 per cent. less than that in England and Wales? Does he not think that this is rather serious for Scotland and will he take steps to let us have the accurate information very quickly?

Sir E. Boyle: That is rather a deep subject for Question Time. There is a very good article on the subject by Professor Cairncross, to which I am referring the hon. Gentleman.

Wool Cloth (Tax)

Dr. Broughton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer his estimate of the revenue from the 10 per cent. Purchase Tax on wool cloth in the financial year 1956–57.

Mr. H. Brooke: About £2 million.

Dr. Broughton: Will the Treasury forgo this revenue in order to remove an injustice? Since there is no Purchase Tax on cloth made from cotton or material made of synthetic fibres, will the right hon. Gentleman say how long this unjust discrimination against wool cloth is to remain?

Mr. Brooke: I think the hon. Member understands that this difficulty, which has been explained in the House before, arises from the problem of the small tailor, which makes it necessary to retain this tax on wool cloth as a counterpart to the tax on clothing.

Nationalised Industries

Mr. Grimond: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the policy of Her Majesty's Government for minimising losses incurred by the nationalised industries in holding down prices at the request of Her Majesty's Government.

Sir E. Boyle: So far as the fuel and power group of nationalised industries is concerned, my right hon. Friend has no

reason to believe that their decision about prices will result in their making revenue deficits. As regards electricity in particular, this was explained by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in a reply of 26th June. The hon. Member has a separate question down about the British Transport Commission which is being answered by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport.

Mr. Grimond: Is it not clear that many of these industries already have a deficit which they are carrying forward? If the Government now intend to force them to run up a further deficit, how do they propose to deal with the ultimate result? Is not this policy, even if it is effective at all, inflationary and does it not in the long run merely put off the evil day and make the situation worse?

Sir E. Boyle: The hon. Member is misinformed about the facts. The National Coal Board's announcement about price stabilisation came after an increase in price as from 1st June, and the Coal Board said that in the absence of unforeseen developments this price increase would not merely prevent any growth in the Board's deficit but would reduce it. Dealing with the electricity industry, in a written reply to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. J. Harrison) on 26th June the Prime Minister explained that
While some of the area boards may be in deficit on the area's operations as a result, the electricity industry as a whole is expected to make a small surplus."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th June, 1956; Vol. 555, c. 25.]

Mr. G. R. Strauss: What is the Government's policy towards the transport industry, which is covered by this Question? Do not the Government appreciate that if by their action they force a substantial loss on those nationalised industries, they have some obligation to deal with it in some way or another? Will he tell us what the policy is?

Sir E. Boyle: There is another Question on the Order Paper about the British Transport Commission to which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport is to reply.

Mr. Hamilton: Since the National Coal Board and the other nationalised industries are acting on the assumption that there will be no wage demands, and since further wage demands are inevitable as a


result of increases in rent and the removal of the bread and other food subsidies, what will happen subsequently?

Sir E. Boyle: I cannot add to what I have said, but I do not accept the hon. Member's defeatist view about the future of wages.

Mr. Gaitskell: Are we to understand from the Minister's reply and his refusal to answer the question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) on transport that the Government have one policy for the British Transport Commission and a totally different policy for the National Coal Board? If it is the same general financial policy, why will not the Minister answer the question about transport?

Sir E. Boyle: Because there is a separate Question down about transport which the Minister of Transport is to answer.

Mr. Grimond: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in view of Her Majesty's Government's request to the nationalised industries to hold back price increases, what proposals he has to limit demand for the products of these industries.

Sir E. Boyle: Our financial and economic policies are designed to deal with excess demand in the economy as a whole. We will continue to take any measures necessary for that purpose.

Mr. Grimond: Is the Economic Secretary now telling us that in point of fact these appeals were quite unnecessary because none of the Boards intended to increase its prices anyway? If that is so, why has private industry made this approach to the Government that the Boards should not increase their prices? Are we to take it that these appeals were quite unnecessary and have had no economic effect because the prices would not have been raised, so there will be no excess demand?

Sir E. Boyle: If the hon. Member reads the speech of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Tuesday's debate he will find a precise answer. There is room for appeals and restraint and it is also essential to back my right hon. Friend's attempt to remove the excess pressure of demand.

Mr. Jay: Can the Economic Secretary explain what the Prime Minister could not explain last week—why it helps the national economy and the nationalised industries to keep down coal and rail charges, for instance, but the Government still push up the prices of bread and milk and rents?

Sir E. Boyle: I think the Prime Minister gave a very full answer to that question last week.

Pensions (Increase) Act

Mr. Godman Irvine: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the date on which pensioners entitled to increases under the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1956, for which the Government are responsible, may expect to receive the increased payments which are to be effective under that Act from 1st April last.

Mr. H. Brooke: In the seven weeks since the Bill received Royal Assent, nearly half of the 250,000 pensions paid by Government Departments have already been dealt with, and every effort is being made to get the remaining increases into payment as rapidly as possible.

Arts Council Grants (Ballet)

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what subsidies are foreshadowed by grants to the Arts Council or otherwise in the year 1956–57 exclusively for ballet; and what companies will receive support.

Mr. H. Brooke: The Treasury make an annual grant to the Arts Council, and it is the responsibility of the Council, not of the Treasury, to allocate this grant among various activities.

Dame Irene Ward: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that he has given the figures in respect of opera? Will he also give the figures in respect of ballet? In view of the fact that taxpayers' money is being used to finance both opera and ballet, does he not think that it is time that we knew what Covent Garden is losing on opera and what it is gaining on ballet? Will he please take steps to have this matter ventilated and put right?

Mr. Brooke: The Arts Council publishes an annual report in which it gives all this information about its grants.

Dame Irene Ward: What about Sadler's Wells?

Mr. Brooke: Having established this system of making grants through the Arts Council, I do not think it would be right for the Treasury to seek to influence the way in which the Arts Council uses these block grants.

Oil Shipments (British Tankers)

Mr. S. N. Evans: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will require an additional guarantee in connection with the sale of Trinidad Oil Limited, namely, that oil from Trinidad and the Middle East, sold by the Texas Oil Company in this country, will be transported in British-built tankers trading under the British flag.

Sir E. Boyle: No, Sir.

Mr. Evans: Why not?

Sir E. Boyle: Because our general policy is and will remain one of strong opposition to flag discrimination.

Mr. Evans: Is not the Economic Secretary aware of the vast and increasing tonnages of oil which have been brought here, for sale in this country, in Greek ships which pay no taxes here and which are financed by New York financial institutions and the oil companies? How are we to pay dividends on the oil sold and to pay for all that we import from America if this underhand method of defeating British competition is resorted to?

Sir E. Boyle: We all recognise the hon. Member's patriotism, but I fear that he will not be successful in converting my right hon. Friend to a doctrine of economic nationalism, because that would not pay this country.

Mr. Paget: Surely this is the greatest possible nonsense—this ever-increasing number of ships sailing under "phoney" flags of, substantially, imaginary countries?

Bread (Price)

Mr. Allaun: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that the price of a loaf will rise to 1s. in September when the remaining subsidy is removed and, in view of the fact that this increase is larger than was estimated when the proposal was first made, if he will reconsider the matter.

Sir E. Boyle: No, Sir. The price of the loaf after September will have to take account of bakers' costs at the time and can only be a matter of speculation at this moment. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has already said that there can be no question of reversing the decision on the bread subsidy.

Mr. Allaun: But has the Minister any conception of what this increase, whether it be to 11½d. or 1s., which is what most bakers estimate, means to the old-age pensioner with less than 2s. 6d. a day left for food, and to a worker with a big family and a low wage? How can he possibly defend these deliberate increases in the prices of bread, milk, rent and household essentials on moral, economic or any other grounds?

Sir E. Boyle: It is precisely because my right hon. Friend did take account of those with large families that he has increased the family allowances for the third and subsequent children.

MINISTERS (SALARIES)

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Prime Minister if he is giving consideration to the relationship between the salaries of Ministers in charge of Departments and those of permanent secretaries; and if he will make a statement.

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend is aware of the position. But, as he has already said, Her Majesty's Government do not consider the present an appropriate time for increasing the salaries of Ministers.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is my right hon. Friend aware that permanent secretaries are now getting £1,000 a year more than Ministers? Is that right constitutionally, and is it good managerial practice that No. 2 should get £1,000 more than the boss?

Mr. Butler: As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister pointed out, Ministers are expected to set an example. We are at present in a position when an example is necessary, and I hope it will be followed by all sections of the population.

Mr. Gaitskell: Would the right hon. Gentleman care to say when an example will not be necessary?

Mr. Butler: If the right hon. Member will turn his mind back, he will realise that, in the period shortly after his Administration, steps were taken by the Government which resulted in stabilising the cost of living over the period from 1953 to 1954, when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer. [Laughter.] This is not a laughing matter. I am perfectly confident that, if we proceed with policies designed to the same end, we shall be equally successful in this Government.

Mr. Shinwell: The right hon. Gentleman talks about setting an example. Why did he and his colleagues not think of that when last year substantial increases of salaries were given to permanent Under-Secretaries?

Mr. Butler: That was in response to an award, and I think it was rightly done.

Mr. Lewis: In view of the fact that the Government agreed to an award decided upon by a Select Committee for M.P.s, why is there the differentiation in treatment between those getting £20 a week more and having none of the expenses to meet such as Members of Parliament have to meet? Why single them out?

Mr. Butler: This is a matter concerning Ministers, not Members of Parliament. No one is in doubt about the difficulties of Junior Ministers, nor of Members of Parliament, but there is the question of the time to choose to do these things. The Government are quite firmly of the opinion that this is not the right time.

SOUTH-EAST ASIA (CO-OPERATIVE SCHEMES)

Mr. Beswick: asked the Prime Minister if, in view of the contribution made by co-operative societies in the development of Colonial Territories and of the interest now shown by the Indian Government in this form of organisation, he will discuss with the Commonwealth Prime Ministers how co-operatives can be encouraged and assisted as part of the development of South-East Asia within the province of the Colombo Plan.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
Member Governments of the Colombo Plan know that if they wish expert advice in the organisation of co-operative societies, they can apply for it under the Technical Co-operation Scheme of the Plan.

Mr. Beswick: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think more could be done by concerted action? Would he not agree that social and economic development along these lines could do more to secure stability in that area than any amount of military pacts or stockpiles of atomic weapons? In view of the great interest which the Indian Government have shown, does he not think this is a suitable matter upon which to have discussions at this time?

Mr. Butler: I do not doubt that every aspect of these matters is being considered by the Commonwealth Conference which is now sitting. I gave the hon. Member the facts about the Colombo Plan, and I do not differ from him in his diagnosis of the situation.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mrs. Mann: On a point of order. I wish to have your guidance, Mr. Speaker, on the responsibility of Ministers in regard to Questions. I had a Question down for the Chancellor of the Exchequer today. I had asked him if, in view of food survey reports which show that the diet of children is below the standard set by the British Medical Association, he would postpone the implementation of the higher price for school meals. The Chancellor has passed my Question to the Minister of Education. I would have put it to the Minister of Education in the first place, but has that Minister any power to postpone the raising of the price of the school meal? If he has not, why should my Question be passed to the Minister of Education?

Mr. Speaker: I could not answer the hon. Lady's question. As I have frequently said in this House, the transference of Questions from one Minister to another has nothing at all to do with me. The Ministers know the bounds of their responsibility better than I do, and it is a matter completely outside my control.

MALTA (ECONOMIC COMMISSION)

Mr. Bevan: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is now in a position to state the personnel and terms of reference of the Economic Commission to Malta.

The Minister of State for Colonial Affairs (Mr. John Hare): No, Sir. The Maltese Government have raised certain points about the membership and terms of reference of the Commission which my right hon. Friend is now considering.

Mr. Bevan: Can the Minister tell us when he is likely to be able to let us have this information?

Mr. Hare: There is certainly no desire on the part of either my right hon. Friend or the Maltese Government for there to be any delay in this matter. We are discussing certain details and will make the announcement as soon as possible.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business for next week?

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 9TH JULY—Supply [19th Allotted Day]: Committee.
Debate on New Towns and Overspill, in England and Wales.
Consideration of the Draft Wool Textile Industry Levy Orders; and the Draft Sale of Food (Weights and Measures: Bacon and Ham) Regulations.
TUESDAY, 10TH JULY—Report stage of the Finance (No. 2) Bill.
WEDNESDAY, 11TH JULY—It is hoped to complete the Report stage of the Finance (No. 2) Bill at a reasonable hour, and afterwards take the Committee and remaining stages of the Public Works Loans Bill; the British Caribbean Federation Bill; and the Governors' Pensions Bill.
THURSDAY, 12TH JULY—Supply [20th Allotted Day]: Committee, which it is proposed to take formally.
A debate will take place on Members' Salaries on a Motion to be tabled by the Opposition.
FRIDAY, 13TH JULY—Third Reading of the Finance (No. 2) Bill.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is the Leader of the House aware that his statement about Thursday's business is slightly misleading, perhaps inaccurate? The position is that the Opposition decided that the question of Members' salaries should be discussed and that they would make available to the House generally one of their Supply days for that purpose. The debate will have to take place on a Motion because, otherwise, discussion of Ministers' salaries and Members' pensions would be out of order, but it is not the view of the Opposition, since the Prime Minister has made it plain that there is to be no free vote on this matter, that the Motion should be pressed to a Division, since we believe that this should be treated entirely as a House of Commons matter and not as a party issue.

Mr. Butler: I was not intending to give an inaccurate view, but the initiative in tabling a Motion will, I understand, be taken by the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. Subject to that, we shall certainly be ready to discuss the matter in the atmosphere suggested by the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Lewis: We want to get the debate on Members' salaries in its correct perspective. When this matter was last discussed, more than 140 hon. Members opposite voted against any increase and said that they would not accept it, if granted. As there is only one hon. Gentleman who is now carrying out that honourable decision, could we find out from the Chancellor who he is, so that we may pay him the tribute that he deserves?

Mr. Butler: Every effort will be made to ascertain this noble character before Thursday, but I very much doubt whether, either constitutionally or practically, we shall be successful.

Mr. Callaghan: May I ask whether the Leader of the House has read the Motion put down by a group of hon. Members on the question of retrospection of pay for the police? Is he aware that although the Motion was tabled less than 48 hours ago, already nearly 150 hon. Members


have signed it? Although I do not press him for a debate next week will he, in return, undertake to discuss the matter with his colleagues and give us a favourable reply?

[That, in the opinion of this House, the federated ranks of the Police Service should no longer be excluded from the benefits of retrospective pay agreements where appropriate, and, in particular, urges the Government to take the necessary action by legislation or otherwise, that will permit the recent Award of the Independent Police Arbitration Tribunal to be implemented.]

Mr. Butler: It is the intention of my right hon. and gallant Friend the Home Secretary to state his opinion on this matter, and that will no doubt give guidance to the House. I can give no undertaking about time for a debate. I am aware of the Motion and of the number of hon. Members supporting it.

Mr. Callaghan: We have always understood that the Home Secretary would give his views about the future. Will his answer also include his reasons for not accepting arbitration awards in the past?

Mr. Butler: I think I must let my right hon. and gallant Friend speak for himself.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is the Leader of the House aware that it is, in our opinion, necessary that very shortly there should be a debate on foreign affairs, and that since there has not been a general debate on foreign affairs for a very long time we believe that this should be a two-day debate? If we are prepared to set aside one Supply day for that purpose, will be be prepared to find the rest of the time from Government time?

Mr. Butler: I was aware that the Opposition would wish a debate on foreign affairs and of the sort of proposal which the right hon. Gentleman has put forward. I suggest that we

discuss the matter through the usual channels.

Mr. John Hall: May I reinforce what the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) has said about the Motion, in the names of many hon. Members on both sides, relating to the award of the independent police arbitration tribunal, and ask my right hon. Friend that when our mutual right hon. and gallant Friend gives a decision it will be a favourable one, and that we shall find the police receiving what they think is necessary?

Mr. Speaker: I do not think that that is relevant to the business for next week.

Mr. Edward Evans: Is the Leader of the House aware that the new Orders in respect of subsidies for the fishing industry must come into operation on 1st August? Is he aware that there has been no debate in the House on the fishing industry since last December? In view of the industry's importance, does he not think that the Government should have the opinion of hon. Members about their proposed plans? Otherwise, it will be too late. There will be no debate on the industry, the Government will have made up their minds, and the views of hon. Members will not have been heard.

Mr. Butler: There will be an opportunity for debate when the Orders are laid. We shall certainly pay attention to what the hon. Member has said.

Mr. Benn: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when it is proposed to debate the Motion setting up the Select Committee on procedure?

Mr. Butler: I cannot give any definite time at present.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is it not rather unfortunate that the Governors' Pensions Bill should come up on Wednesday, in view of the fact that it increases the pensions of colonial Governors? Does the Lord Privy Seal think that this is the appropriate time to discuss that Bill?

Orders of the Day — COAL INDUSTRY [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to extend the power of the Minister of Fuel and Power to make advances to the National Coal Board for capital purposes, it is expedient to authorise the issue out of the Consolidated Fund, the raising in any manner authorised under the National Loans Act, 1939, or the payment into the Exchequer, of any increases in the sums authorised by the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act, 1946, to be so issued, raised or paid which are attributable to any provision of the said Act of the present Session replacing the previous restrictions on the power of the Minister of Fuel and Power to make advances to the National Coal Board for capital purposes by a provision that the aggregate amount outstanding by way of principal in respect of such advances—

(a) shall not at any time exceed six hundred and fifty million pounds; and
(b) shall not at any time in any financial year exceed by more than seventy-five million pounds (or such greater sum as the said Minister may by order specify for that year) the highest aggregate amount so outstanding at any time during the immediately preceding financial year.

Resolution agreed to.

Orders of the Day — COAL INDUSTRY BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Clause 1.—(EXTENSION OF POWER TO MAKE ADVANCES TO NATIONAL COAL BOARD.)

3.41 p.m.

The Chairman: I think that the first Amendment on the Notice Paper, in page 1, line 17 after "principal", to insert "(i)" is a printing Amendment and, therefore, it is not necessary to move it.

The Minister of Fuel and Power (Mr. Aubrey Jones): I beg to move, in page 1, line 17, after "section", to insert:
made before the expiration of five years from the commencement of the Coal Industry Act, 1956".
The purpose of this Amendment is twofold—first, to remove a misconception, and secondly, to provide an extra opportunity for Parliament to scrutinise the way in which moneys made available to the Coal Board under the Bill are used.
First, with regard to the misconception, the Coal Board's new investment plan is a 10-year plan. There is an expenditure of £1,000 million over 10 years. Since the plan is a 10-year plan, it was, I suppose, natural to assume that the advances intended under this Bill were for 10 years. Throughout the Second Reading debate there were frequent references to this Bill as a 10-year Bill, and more than one hon. Member asked me specifically to reduce the term of years from 10. In fact, this was never a 10-year Bill. The application of the Coal Board with respect to finance did not extend to 10 years, nor was it the intention that the Bill should extend to 10 years. The application of the Coal Board is summarised in page 21 of the Coal Board's document "Investing in Coal." These are the Board's words:
They"—
that is, the Coal Board—
may require to borrow up to an additional £400 million in the next five years. If the Board were able by means of higher prices to wipe out the accumulated deficit in that period, the amount required would be reduced to about £350 million.
As for the intention of the Bill, the intention with regard to five years was expressed—at least, I tried to express it—in the speech with which I opened the Second Reading debate. This is what I said:
It"—
that is, the Coal Board—
has asked for added borrowing power representing, at most, £400 million. The Board has put it that this borrowing is necessary to see it over the great heave of investment for the next five years. Beyond the next five years, as investment dwindles and as the depreciation provisions from past investment improve, it is estimated that the Board will be entirely self-financing."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th May, 1956; Vol. 552, c. 1440.]
The intention always was, therefore, that the advances provided for in this Bill should be for five years, and this Amendment now makes clear that intention and, I trust, puts the matter entirely beyond all doubt and all misunderstanding. I am only sorry that misunderstanding arose in the first place.
But beyond that, this Amendment, as I have said, provides an extra opportunity for Parliament to scrutinise the way in which the moneys made available to the Board under the Bill are used. If I am a true prophet, much of our discussion


this afternoon will turn on this issue of Parliamentary accountability, and all I would say about it at this time is this. It is right and proper that this House, as the instrument by which capital and finance is made available to the nationalised industries, should exercise a scrutiny over the way in which the finance is used. None of us, I would hope, in any quarter of the Committee, would question that, because, after all, to question that would be to question the whole constitutional being of this Chamber. That, I trust, is beyond all doubt.
The problem, as I see it, is to provide for this scrutiny without, at the same time, creating doubts in the minds of the nationalised undertakings that Parliament supports long-term investment, because if there is any doubt about Parliament's support of finance for long-term investment, then, clearly, the investment is jeopardised and it will not be carried through. The problem, therefore, is to reconcile Parliamentary scrutiny with certainty.
This task of reconciliation, like most problems of reconciliation in politics, is not an easy one. The Bill as drafted and unamended attempts this reconciliation. It provides opportunities for Parliamentary scrutiny when the annual level of advances exceeds £75 million. Whenever it exceeds £75 million, then I have to come along to the House to seek approval for exceeding that limit. That is to say, in the earlier years when particularly heavy advances are foreseen, or in any year of extraordinarily heavy advances, Parliament will have an opportunity for scrutiny.
This Amendment provides a still further opportunity for scrutiny, at the end of five years. If the five years were to expire before the additional £350 million written in the Bill were used up, legislation would be needed and the matter would automatically return to this House.
All in all, either as a result of the annual limit of £75 million or as a result of the new time limit of five years suggested by this Amendment, I expect that the House will have an automatic opportunity of scrutinising the way in which the finance is used in most of the years out of the five—almost certainly, I

would say, in three, and possibly even in four.
But it may be asked: what about the missing year, or years? How can we provide for Parliamentary scrutiny in the missing years while still observing the canon which I mentioned earlier about ensuring certainty for investment? I propose henceforth, at the beginning of every financial year, to publish a White Paper. This White Paper will describe what has happened in the way of investment in the year just elapsed in all the nationalised fuel and power industries, as well as the projected programme for the impending year.

Mr. James Callaghan: And transport?

Mr. Jones: I cannot answer for the Minister of Transport. I am only concerned with fuel and power, but I think I would be right in saying that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport would not be averse from doing something on the same lines.
The White Paper, as I say, will describe investment in the year which has elapsed and the programme for the impending year. It would also estimate at the beginning of the financial year the likely level of advances to be required during that year. Since the White Paper would relate to all the nationalised fuel and power industries, fuel and power investment would be seen in its proper perspective. What is more, I should like to emphasise that the White Paper will not be merely retrospective, but will be prospective; it will be a forecast as well as a picture of what has happened.
It is the intention of the Government, so far as one can now foresee these things, to provide ample time for debate on such a White Paper in the years when, otherwise, under the Bill, investment in coal did not come before the House automatically for review—that is, either when the money limit of £75 million or the time limit of five years did not operate.
In short, this Amendment to insert the period of five years, coupled with my White Paper, rounds off the opportunities for Parliament to review the course of investment, while satisfying my canon that the investment should not be subjected to uncertainty. On that ground,


as well as on the ground that it is surely desirable to remove a misunderstanding, I commend this Amendment to the Committee.

Mr. J. Grimond: The Minister took it as axiomatic that everybody would be in favour of closer Parliamentary scrutiny. I do not in the least wish to disagree with that, but I do not myself feel that he paid quite enough attention to the timing of the scrutiny and the information to be scrutinized. I certainly feel that one of the difficulties in the House is that we are presented by nationalised industries with large plans already drawn up, with global figures, and we virtually cannot learn how these plans were ever arrived at, and we have great difficulty in questioning details within the plans.
Useful as annual scrutiny may be, we should be told a little more as to how it is to work. I take it that most investment plans in coal must be very long-term, and it really is not possible for the House of Commons from year to year to say it would like this investment cut down or that investment increased, as the case might be. It would surely put the Coal Board in very great difficulties if substantial differences were made in that way.
If that he so, is not this control, of which the Minister has spoken, to some extent illusory, and are we not thrown back again upon this, that we ought to be quite sure that any particular programme is really discussed in greater detail and approved by the House before it is embarked upon at all? I personally feel that that is the vital factor in any discussion of investment in the nationalised industries. I do not consider that we are given sufficient details of the way in which these large programmes are drawn up, and we are not shown how they are related to investment programmes in other industries, such as oil, which is extremely important, or the investment programmes, for example, of the Atomic Energy Authority.
I hope that the Minister will tell us a little more about how much we shall find in the White Paper of which he spoke. That is extremely important. He said, as I understood, that the White Paper would cover all the fuel and power industries. I have before suggested that we ought to have a committee of experts to look at

all these investment programmes of the nationalised industries, and that the committee should have before it, also, the investment programmes, of, say, the big oil companies so that it can advise on the whole situation. Is it intended to put into the White Paper the forecasts, which presumably the Government can get from them, of the oil companies as regards their investment? We know the Government are taking more trouble to get these forecasts as accurately as they can from these large industries. Will such information as that be given in the White Paper?
Furthermore, we must again say that this investment is investment in a wasting asset; it cannot be anything else. If we are to get full value for it, it is absolutely vital that it should go along with better recruitment and productivity in the industry. That really will be the ultimate, decisive factor in whether these astronomical sums of money yield to the nation a proper return or not.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: I welcome the proposal that we should have this White Paper on the investment programmes of the fuel and power industries. As some of my hon. Friends know, I have fairly strong views on this matter of Parliamentary accountability, but in the matter of capital investment I think there is this difficulty. If we are to have just the figures for the fuel and power industries—a very important part of the national economy—will those figures mean a great deal unless we have accurate figures for the whole of the economy? If the figures for coal are to mean anything, they must surely be stated in relation to the whole economic picture of the country.
Suppose we are told that in a particular year the figure for coal is to be £20 million or £40 million, who is to say it is the right figure for the particular year? It seems to me that that does depend upon the total level of investment. Of course, this applies to electricity and gas, for which the right hon. Gentleman has responsibility, but surely it must also apply to the motor car industry and to engineering. If I remember correctly, there was a time when we did have these figures in the Economic Survey, in the days of the late Sir Stafford Cripps, though I cannot remember just how much


detail there was. We are certainly not provided with these figures at present.
It seems to me, therefore, that the demand of hon. Gentlemen opposite, who are generally known, I think, as the "Tory coal rebels", for figures, particularly on coal, is really associated with their generally demagogic approach on this problem.

Mr. Gerald Nabarro: That is a very silly point.

Mr. Palmer: If the hon. Member wants an investment programme for the whole economy, that is excellent. But I cannot really believe that he is at heart a planner; I think he is, if anything, an economic anarchist. Nevertheless, I think that it is an excellent start, though only a start, to have the figures for what I call the energy industries.
The right hon. Gentleman will encounter many difficulties if he really undertakes something like an energy policy for the country, though it is certainly badly needed. For my own interest, I have listed his difficulties, as I see them. In the public sector of his responsibilities, there are some powerful autonomous corporations, which are obliged by Parliament to balance their accounts and pay their way each year. In the private sector, there is oil, which is a vast industry, with wide international ramifications, only one end of it being under his influence.
As the field of nuclear fission and the power stations associated therewith, development of which is likely, in the nature of things, to be a slow process, it will really be a separate empire altogether; it is not the direct responsibility of the right hon. Gentleman, but comes under another member of the Administration who is to be found in another place.
4.0 p.m.
In those circumstances, it seems to me that, though we shall have a White Paper, and though we shall have some figures, it is very doubtful whether they will really represent a policy. At present, the responsibility for capital allocations in the fuel and power industries is undoubtedly extremely loose. It depends a great deal not only on the whims and fancies of the Government and the ups and downs

of their economic policy, but it probably also depends on the relative power of various pressure groups within the publicly-owned industries. I have always been delighted when electricity has done reasonably well. I have been less pleased—it is an old, professional fad of mine—when the gas industry has pushed ahead, but the fact is that both gas and electricity have done relatively well in the matter of capital allocations in the last few years, while the coal industry, on which they depend, has done badly.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: On a point of order. Would you be good enough to indicate to the Committee, Sir Charles, whether you are likely to restrict the discussion on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," in view of the rather general debate which is now developing, because some of my hon. Friends and myself may want to indulge in a wide debate rather than on the point we have put down in our Amendment?

The Chairman: Much of what the hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. Palmer) has been saying up to now would be more appropriate to the discussion on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Palmer: Thank you, Sir Charles; I will confine my remarks to the Amendment. To sum up in this way, if this is a step towards a monetary policy—and it may be that the right hon. Gentleman will indicate whether it is or not—I say it is a good thing, but I rather suspect that it is but a facade to cover the understandable difficulties which the Minister is having with his back-benchers.

Mr. Nabarro: I am privileged, and not a little gratified, to find my name along with that of my right hon. Friend the Minister to the Amendment on the Notice Paper. My right hon. Friend has described the purpose of his Amendment as something which is hardly to be regarded as in the nature of an advance towards the point of view which was expressed by some of my hon. Friends and myself in the Second Reading debate, and it is quite possible that there was a degree of misconception as to the span of the proposals in this Bill during the Second Reading. That is understandable, because it is very difficult to analyse precisely the meaning of the National Coal


Board's document "Investing in Coal", as to the span of years over which it envisages its £1,000 million capital investment programme would run.
My right hon. Friend quite rightly said that there were two considerations inherent in his Amendment. The first is the matter of the length of years that the investment for which we are hoping under the Bill will run, and the second is the question of Parliamentary accountability, and whether or not it is desirable to have an annual scrutiny of this investment programme or one over a longer period of years. I wish to address myself to each of those questions.
My right hon. Friend has said that the whole of the borrowing powers under this Bill will, in effect, be exhausted during the first five years, and that that was always his intention. It follows from that, and this was his second comment this afternoon, that during the second period of five years which will make up the 10 years' span, the whole of the investment of the Coal Board will be forthcoming from the Board's own internal resources, namely, from its depreciation and associated provisions, by the accountancy system with which we are all acquainted in the Board's annual report and accounts.

Mr. Angus Maude: We do not understand it.

Mr. Nabarro: My hon. Friend says that we do not understand it. It is, I suppose, exceedingly difficult to understand.
I want to direct the attention of my right hon. Friend to what I am sure was an inadvertent omission on his part from his Second Reading Speech, because it touches precisely on the point I am making. In the Second Reading debate on 10th May, I put this question to my right hon. Friend:
He said that two-thirds of the capital investment to which he referred would be found from the Coal Board's own resources. Would he justify that to the House by saying on what depreciation principles and on what price structure he has based his assumption that two-thirds of the whole of this vast sum of money can be found from the internal resources of the Board?
My right hon. Friend then replied:
If my hon. Friend will curb his impatience, as we all know he is well capable of doing, I will deal with that point in a moment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th May, 1956; Vol. 552, c. 1440.]

In fact, I call my right hon. Friend's attention to the fact that he did not deal with it.

The Chairman: I do not think that this matter is dealt with in this Amendment.

Mr. Nabarro: I will come to the Amendment in a minute, but, if I might, I should like to take this a little further, because it has direct relevance to this massive financial matter.
The fact is that my right hon. Friend said this afternoon that the Board's borrowing powers would be exhausted in the first five years, and that is why he is putting a five-year restriction in the Bill by this Amendment. I am asking him how he can be sure that the borrowing powers will be exhausted in the first five years, and, flowing from that, can he be sure that no borrowing will be required by the Board in the ensuing five years?
What I am saying is directly related to the Amendment. My right hon. Friend did not give the Committee this afternoon any precise answer to that question which I posed, and which remained unanswered on Second Reading, namely, what are the depreciation principles of the Coal Board, and on what price structure has he based his assertion that its finances and moneys available will be adequate during the second period of five years to finance its investment programme, as enunciated in the document "Investment in Coal", entirely from its own resources.
I do not want to suggest that these estimates may be wrong. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his Amendment to put this five-year limitation in the Bill, and, at this juncture, I want to say with all the force at my disposal that it was never my intention on Second Reading, or today, to circumscribe or limit in any way legitimate investment for the increased production of coal. What my hon. Friends and myself have been so worried about is the length of time——

Mr. E. Shinwell: Will the hon. Gentleman define what he means by legitimate investment?

Mr. Nabarro: I will. There is another Amendment on the Notice Paper in my name, and if the right hon. Gentleman


will bide in patience for just an hour or two he will hear me making a speech on this subject of legitimate investment, and I will deal with his intervention in greater detail then. What I want my right hon. Friend to justify when he responds to this short debate on this Amendment is his confidence that these borrowing powers will indeed be exhausted after five years. I want him also to justify his belief that in the second five years of the 10-year plan it is going to be possible for the Coal Board to find the whole of its investment money from its own resources. I would remind the Committee that the Coal Board has never been right in these matters. It has always been wrong in its estimates of the sums of money it would require to borrow year after year, and of the sums of money it would, therefore, be able to provide from its own depreciation and associated resources.
On that point, I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for making it perfectly clear, to the doubting general public as well as to this Committee, that his intention is that the borrowing powers in the Bill will only run for five years, and that, as he mentioned, there will be an annual White Paper on investment, about which I now want to say a word or two.
The White Paper on investment will not satisfy my scrutiny year by year unless it gives a great deal more detail than just a global sum for each of the fuel and power industries. I want to know, for example—and this touches on the intervention of the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell)—what is the legitimate investment in colliery production and raising more coal and what is, what I consider illegitimate, investment in a number of ventures which are not directly associated with the raising of coal. That is just one division which should be brought out in the White Paper.
I shall also want details of the capital investment moneys expended in the preceding year as well as capital investment moneys anticipated to be required in the ensuing year. I shall want my right hon. Friend to write into the White Paper particulars of major colliery schemes. I shall want him to write into the White Paper full particulars of the amount of

coal which he expects to raise, and when, from each of those major colliery schemes.
In other words, I shall want him to tell the House—[Interruption.] It is all very well for hon. Members opposite to jeer rudely, but I want him to tell the House what the taxpayer will get in return for his money. This is the taxpayers' money. It is money provided below the line in the Budget estimates. In that connection, it has a direct relevance to what my right hon. Friend had to say this afternoon.
Today's Daily Express comment was right on the point. [HON. MEMBERS: "Did you write it?"] No, I did not write it. I am in no way associated with Lord Beaverbrook. I am merely a distant admirer of his Lordship. The Opinion column of the Daily Express says:
Take a look at the Welsh wonder mine at Nantgarw. It cost £5,000,000.
I apologise if I pronounced the name incorrectly. I will willingly spell it.

Mr. S. O. Davies: I want to tell the hon. Member that we have no such place in the whole of Wales.

Mr. Nabarro: I hope I shall be forgiven, in view of that intervention, if I spell the name. It is spelt N-a-n-t-g-a-r-w.
It cost £5,000,000. The estimated output was 750,000 tons of saleable coal a year.
Since the wheels started turning in 1951, Nantgarw has never produced even 300,000 tons a year. Of the 2,000 miners needed the Coal Board has found only 900.
Now the board appoints Mr. H. E. Collins to supervise new sinkings. A thousand million borrowed pounds will be spent in Britain, as he says.
No more Nantgarws, Mr. Collins. That's our money you are spending.
It is the taxpayer's money.
It is for that reason that I want my right hon. Friend to make it abundantly clear to the House of Commons that he will not write into this White Paper merely a few global or aggregate figures of the capital investment in respect of each of the nationally owned industries under his jurisdiction, that we shall be at least given in respect of previous and ensuing years the capital cost and the production related to them. If he does not provide enough detail in the White Paper, then, of course, there will be substantial pressure from my hon. Friends and myself


on my right hon. Friend to become a great deal more expansive in the material which he lays before the House of Commons.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will view with sympathy my interest in these important matters.

Mr. Shinwell: rose——

Mr. Nabarro: Sit down. I will give way in a moment.
Having made an important advance towards the point of view expressed by my hon. Friends and myself on 10th May, I hope that my right hon. Friend can see the further opportunities in the White Paper which all of us so legitimately desire.

Mr. Shinwell: Has the hon. Member finished?

Mr. Nabarro: indicated assent.

Mr. Shinwell: In that case, may I ask the hon. Gentleman a question? If he wants all this information about previous and future costs and the rest of it, would he at the same time, in order to come to a sound conclusion about whether it is worth while investing, require an extensive and exhaustive report of the mining engineers who have examined the project? If that information is not available to him, it is quite impossible for him, who is inexpert in such technical matters, to make up his mind.

4.15 p.m.

Mr. Nabarro: The House of Commons is notoriously inexpert in many technical considerations, but on this side of the Committee we are not inexpert in safeguarding the taxpayers' money. As all the capital investment programme under the borrowing powers under the Bill are to be found in below-the-line finances in the Budget, my hon. Friends and I have every need to scrutinise annually the capital investment sums that have been invested in this fundamentally important industry.

Mr. Callaghan: I have listened to the debate with very great interest. We have had the spectacle of the Minister moving an Amendment to his own Bill and the further spectacle of the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) putting his name to an Amendment whose implications he confesses he does not understand, in view of the requests which he has made

to the Minister to explain to him what happens at the end of five years.
We have also had—the greatest surprise of all—hon. Members opposite, including the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke), protesting at the use of the word "rebel". Since when has that been a dishonourable title? I thought that in the Conservative Party it was a very honourable thing to be a Tory rebel, especially on the subject of coal. I am bound to say that I could understand that the Minister should be very pianissimo when moving words which had been put into his mouth by the hon. Member for Kidderminster, but I do not understand why the noble Lord should protest when somebody calls him a rebel. He is a rebel, a successful rebel, and he should be proud and delighted about it.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: I have not said a word on this Amendment so far.

Mr. Callaghan: I have very good ears and I heard the noble Lord's interjection.
As was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland (Mr. Palmer), it is no use looking only at the surface. One must see what underlies it. I should be much happier about the Amendment if it were not for the equality of its support on the Order Paper. During the Second Reading debate all the hon. Members who are now supporting the Amendment, with the exception of the hon. and gallant Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster), protested in greater or lesser terms that the Bill was offensive. The hon. Member for Kidderminster said that it was offensive on five counts, and proceeded to explain what the five counts were. He voted against the Bill.

Mr. Nabarro: In the Second Reading Reading debate the hon. Member called me a cardboard Caesar.

Mr. Callaghan: I thought that that might provoke the hon. Member into voting, and if it did I am delighted.
We feel that what lies behind the Amendment is not the reasonable and statesmanlike approach of the Minister, but the approach of the Tory rebels who want to fetter, make less flexible, to hamper, crib and confine the activities of the coal industry. That is what lies behind the Amendment. Hon. Members must make up their minds whether that is what they want to do or not. Some say that it is and some say that it is not.


From the speeches which were made on Second Reading, it is clear that the purpose of the Amendment is not to assist the coal industry, but to hamper it.
I congratulate the Minister on the skill with which he put the case. If the Minister says to the Coal Board that the powers he intended to give it to borrow a certain sum over a period are now to be halved and that he is to give those powers for half the period, he clearly makes the financial policy of the Coal Board less flexible than it otherwise would have been.
The hon. Member for Kidderminster did a little arithmetic on Second Reading and told us that 10 years into £350 million made an average borrowing of £35 million a year. He was right, of course, and that is perhaps the way the Coal Board would have liked to have financed this programme. Perhaps it would have preferred, over a period of 10 years, to have borrowed about £35 million a year and to have raised the rest each year from its own ordinary financing, but the effect of the Minister's Amendment is to prevent this.
The Minister is going to force the Coal Board to borrow, if he gives it the necessary permission, much more in the first five years and to finance itself out of its own resources in the second five years. Why introduce this rigidity into the financing of the coal industry, unless the right hon. Gentleman is making a concession to the rebels who pressed him so hard on Second Reading? That is why I tell the Miniser that we are not satisfied that the explanation which he gave represents all the truth in this situation.
The right hon. Gentleman said that it is proposed to publish a White Paper every year which will set out not only investment in the past but also investment in the future. I take no exception to that. It is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland said, returning very much to the documents and Economic Surveys which were published by the Labour Government. Every year that those surveys were published there was a section dealing not only with capital investment in the past, but with the prospects for that year. The documents have since been emasculated and that particular section has disappeared.

Mr. Maude: It disappeared in 1951.

Mr. Callaghan: I do not remember which year it was. I know that up to 1950 it was included, because I played some part in the matter. Certainly, during the first five or six years have Members opposite sneered and jeered a great deal about the failure of the performance to match up with the prospects that were published in that section. Now they want to return to that system.

Mr. Nabarro: This is a Tory Ministry.

Mr. Callaghan: I do not complain that they want to return to that system and I hope that we shall have a return in those statements to the details which used to be included in the White Paper. There used to be a list of the major new proposals of capital investments which the British Transport Commission, for instance, intended to undertake every year. I am nearly 100 per cent. certain that the White Paper went so far as to indicate which pits it was intended to develop. Who are we on this side of the Committee to complain if the Minister goes back to that? I am sure that none of us on this side of the Committee will regret having that additional information.
The Minister wants to see investments in perspective. In what sort of perspective? Does he propose to include in the White Paper details of the proposed investment plans of the oil companies and of the Atomic Energy Authority, and of those companies which will be building nuclear power stations for the Central Electricity Authority? Unless those details appear in the White Paper, we shall not have a complete picture but merely a partial picture of the country's fuel and power situation and outlook.
The right hon. Gentleman will have to give us a whole picture, setting out in some detail, also, the proposed investments of the oil companies, which are particularly important in this matter, or we shall not be able to judge clearly and accurately what the investment picture really means. As far as I can understand the Government's fuel and power policy, it is to get such coal as they can over the next 10 to 15 years, to continue with an atomic energy policy which will not produce anything significant until 1963–65, and to rely upon oil to fill the gap.
If the statistics of the Ministry of Fuel and Power are to be accepted, that gap will be a substantial and growing one in the next 10 years and the oil industry will have to double its output. How can the Minister tell us that he wants to give a picture in perspective of investments in our energy needs, unless we can see how far that is a balanced picture through having included in it all sources of fuel and power? The right hon. Gentleman said that he intended to include only the nationalised industries.
Although my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland welcomed all this as an attempt to get near a fuel and power policy, it is nothing of the sort. It is merely an attempt to placate the rebels. If the right hon. Gentleman tells me that he is ready to include as much detail in the White Paper about the proposed investments of the oil companies as he intends to include about the nationalised fuel and power sector, I shall begin to accept the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland that this is something close to a fuel and power plan. As it is, this is only an attempt to assist the muck-rakers below the Gangway to delve into what they regard as the weaknesses of the nationalised fuel and power industries.
I thought that the hon. Member for Kidderminster fell below his usual repartee when he replied to my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell).

Mr. Nabarro: I made no reply at all.

Mr. Callaghan: In that case, I do not propose to comment. I am very happy to leave the matter to my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington, who has been Minister of Fuel and Power and has long experience of these matters.

Sir Ian Horobin: The right hon. Gentleman put 2 million men out of work when he was Minister of Fuel and Power.

An Hon. Member: The big freeze.

Mr. Shinwell: Clever fellow. I will answer these silly sneers at the proper time.

Mr. Callaghan: On the basis of the information which we have been given, we must come to the conclusion that the proposed Amendment does not enable us

to judge the Government's fuel and power policy as a whole, that at best it will present only in partial detail the statistics of the fuel and power picture, and that it is intended to hamper and cripple the nationalised industries because of the approach made to it by those who have put their names to the Amendment, apart from the Minister. For those reasons, we on this side of the Committee shall give the Minister and other hon. Members opposite the opportunity of voting for the Bill as it stands.

Sir Peter Roberts: The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) has tried to make out that some of my hon. Friends want to establish more control over the capital expenditure of the National Coal Board only in order to hamper the industry. I assure the hon. Member that from my point of view, and I am sure from that of my hon. Friends, this control is desired not to hamper the production of coal but to hamper the unnecessary and extravagant expenditure which may take place. I am quite sure that no hon. Member opposite wants to see uneconomic and extravagant spending of this money. Therefore, the Opposition should support the Amendment and the Bill.
I have been pressing for greater control of capital expenditure in nationalised industries for a long time, and in some cases against Ministers representing the Labour Party. We are now seeing a change of opinion in both parties. The suggestion is being made that there should be greater Parliamentary control of these nationalised industries. I welcome that. I welcome the suggestion when it comes from hon. Gentlemen opposite since, for them, this is a new venture. I can remember the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), during the long debates in Committee on the Coal Industry Nationalisation Bill, which became an Act in 1946, defending the argument that there should be freedom from this type of financial control. Therefore, I am glad to know that he is supporting this Bill.
4.30 p.m.
Let us see exactly what it means. First, by reducing to five years the amount of borrowing by the Coal Board, it will not be practicable to expend that money. I do not think that the Board


will be able to do it because of the question of technicians, of the materials available and of the planning which will be needed. So the Committee must realise that by accepting this Amendment we are reducing the figure of £6 million put before the House on the Second Reading of this Bill, and that it will be considerably less than that at the end of the five years.

Mr. Callaghan: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that the sum we are really talking about is £350 million, and that the estimate of the Coal Board—which has been passed by the Minister—of capital investment this year is £107 million?

Sir P. Roberts: Yes, I appreciate that, but I am talking about the total capital investment from the Board's own resources in the five years. I do not believe that it will be possible for the Board to spend that money.

Mr. Callaghan: May we get the argument right? If the Board spends £107 million this year, and the total power we are giving it is for £350 million, why cannot the Board spend that in five years?

Sir P. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman is right on the particular point of the amount of money being spent now, but I was on the larger point of the capital investment in coal. The main theme we are discussing is what the Board will be able to spend in the period we are thinking about.
Secondly, how far is the Minister, in his statement this afternoon, opening the gate for Parliamentary Questions to him and his Ministry during the course of the year? As I understand, he will come before the House from year to year as the sponsor of the capital investment programme of the Coal Board for that year. Unless he does come forward with responsibility as such, and does answer from the Treasury Bench the points which may be raised from any side of the House, the debate may well be out of order.
Therefore, if the Minister is responsible at one time in the year for the development of, say, a particular colliery, he cannot subsequently divest himself of that responsibility. It must mean that if the Minister comes forward with a

detailed scheme of capital investment in any particular colliery, it will be open to any hon. Member to ask him subsequently, even after a month or two months, how that capital development is proceeding. I hope that the Minister will underline this point.
If that is right—and I believe it is—it is a large and fundamental step forward in Parliamentary control of the industry, and one which I welcome. But we must appreciate what is happening, and I hope that the Minister, when he replies, will agree with my interpretation of his responsibility, because he cannot in a subsequent week divest himself of the responsibility he has taken for something in detail in a previous week. As I say, if that is so. I welcome it as a step forward in the type of Parliamentary control which we have had so far over the nationalised industries.
Lastly, speeches have been made from the other side of the Committee asking for a wider review of the private sector as well as of the public sector of industry. I would say two things on that. First, we must take one step at a time. It has taken several years——

Mr. William Hamilton: Two hundred years.

Sir P. Roberts: —in the case of the nationalised industries. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are muddling the fundamental basis of what we are arguing. We are arguing about the public spending of the taxpayers' money.
That is the basis of the argument we are putting forward, and it is not sensible for hon. Gentlemen opposite to link with that, however much they may want to nationalise a sector of industry, the scrutiny of private industry, which is responsible for its own sources of income, whereas the Coal Board and the nationalised industries are not. Therefore, that argument cannot he accepted on this Amendment.

Mr. Austen Albu: The hon. Gentleman has referred to the taxpayers' money. Is he suggesting that loans made to the nationalised industries should be raised in the same way as Votes for Government Departments?

Sir P. Roberts: No, I am not suggesting that, but it seems to me that in our present financial state these figures can be put under the line, and that then the


Chancellor of the Exchequer could use the surpluses to cover his below-the-line expenditure. It might well be that if ever hon. Gentlemen opposite had power again they might use current expenditure for this type of capital expenditure, which would be disastrous.

Mr. Albu: What is the difference?

Sir P. Roberts: I am trying to explain to the hon. Gentleman. The point is that it is possible for the House of Commons to control the money which goes through its hands, but I hope that we are not asking, at this stage, that the same sort of control should be imposed on private industry.

Mr. Shinwell: I am often amused at the innocence displayed by hon. Gentlemen opposite when dealing with the subject of nationalisation. One might suppose that they were anxious to encourage the projects embodied in the proposals of the National Coal Board. One might imagine that while, in principle, hostile to nationalisation, they were not at all desirous of impeding the development of the coal industry under the Coal Board.
What are the facts? Ever since 1946, when the industry was nationalised, we have met with nothing but implacable opposition and deep-seated hostility from hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite on the subject of nationalisation. I recognise, Sir Rhys, that this is not an occasion for discussing at large the subject of nationalisation and, in particular, the fascinating subject of what happened in 1947.

Mr. Nabarro: Hear, hear.

Mr. Shinwell: You know, Sir Rhys, I have often thought—this is a slight digression—that the House was becoming somewhat dull and ought to be livened up. Indeed, I remember what a previous Speaker of our Assembly once said about the need for the cut and thrust of debate, and a little jollification, indeed vituperation. I should like to say to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) that he is becoming, if he has not already become, the most remarkable political blatherskite I have encountered in this House for 30 years. I think that is recognised even by hon. Gentlemen opposite. I do not dismiss the hon. Gentleman with contempt, because he does not even deserve contempt; I

do not want to use too strong language, but he has become a nuisance. I will leave it at that.
Turning to the subject under review, there has been much talk about using the taxpayers' money. The argument proceeds in this fashion: if we are using taxpayers' money in the form of subsidies or credits advanced by the State, or under the auspices of the State, to private organisations and institutions then there must be a careful scrutiny by this House. Yet I recall occasions in the somewhat far off days when we subsidised some of the large shipping organisations, particularly the Cunard Line. Never a word was said in this House then, nor did we dare say a word, about the organisation of the Cunard Line, about its financial intromissions, about its day-to-day conduct, its method of investment or anything of that kind. But when it comes to a matter of nationalisation of a particular industry—the principle objected to by hon. Members opposite—then they demand a ruthless scrutiny of almost every detail.
Even if the scrutiny were agreed to and the details were furnished, what real difference would it make in what, after all, is the primary objective, if not of all hon. Members opposite, certainly of hon. Members on this side and I believe of the country at large? What effect could it possibly have on the output of coal if we implanted a little more intelligence in the mind of the hon. Member for Kidderminster? Would that produce any more coal? Of course not. Therefore, what we have to consider is not so much the investigation, scrutiny, going into the precise details of investment and the various projects; but how best can we encourage the Coal Board to proceed with its projects unimpeded and uninhibited.
That does not mean that we ought to have no discussion at all of nationalisation and nationalised projects in this House. I go much further than many of my colleagues, certainly as far as anyone on the other side of the Committee, when I say that I believe that the time has arrived when it would be very useful indeed to have discussions about what is proceeding in the nationalised industries and services—discussions of a general character. I believe that hon. Members and the public ought to be better informed. If I want information about


what is happening in the mining industry or about the conduct of the Coal Board, I cannot obtain the information from the Minister of Fuel and Power; I must apply to the Board itself.

Mr. Nabarro: The right hon. Gentleman was responsible for it.

Mr. Shinwell: You keep quiet for a change and learn something.

Mr. Nabarro: Is it in order, Sir Rhys, for the right hon. Gentleman to suggest that you should learn something?

Mr. Shinwell: I withdraw that at once. I am well aware of the traditions of this House. I thought that everyone in the Committee understood to whom the reference was made.
It is perfectly true that when we nationalised the mining industry, we decided to place the conduct and operation of the industry in the hands of an independent and, as we thought, autonomous organisation; but I recognise—and I admit quite freely—that as a result of experience some modification in the organisation of the Board is inevitable, far wider and more extensive than as yet transpired, and that, in addition, we are entitled, as representing our constituents—[Laughter]. Is the hon. Member for Kidderminster not well? Is there a doctor in the House? We are entitled, as representing our constituents—[Laughter]. The hon. Member is not well—and being interested in the future of the nationalised coal industry to far more information than has yet been made available through the present dispensation.
I want to say at once that the right hon. Gentleman has succumbed to the temptation of seeking to placate hon. Members of his own side. I am not altogether surprised. It requires a great deal of courage to stand up to them. The task of the Minister of Fuel and Power has never been made easy by hon. Members on the Tory side of the Committee. Whoever has occupied that position, whether a member of my own party or a member of the Tory Party, he has incurred the hostility and bitter antagonism of hon. Members on the Tory side, so I am not surprised at what has happened.
I beg of the right hon. Gentleman, if he sincerely desires to encourage the Coal Board to proceed with its projects, to take

the advice of expert mining engineers who really know something about this question of development and the need for investment over a long period of years, and the technical and physical difficulties encountered in the mining industry. I beg of him not to take so much notice of what is said by hon. Members opposite, but to turn his attention to the people who really matter. That is why I object to the Amendment proposed by the right hon. Gentleman.
4.45 p.m.
In fact, if that Amendment were of any value at all, it would not be supported by hon. Members opposite. That is a condemnation of the Amendment itself. I will tell the right hon. Gentleman why. The fact is that the mining industry encounters technical and physical difficulties which are quite unknown at the outset of a capital investment programme, or at the beginning of any development scheme, and it is quite impossible to say whether it is going to succeed or not.
Let us take, as a simple illustration, the difficulties about the pit in South Wales. What has happened there? They thought that they would produce 750,000 tons of coal a year. That is nothing new. In the days of private ownership of the mining industry millions of pounds were lost by coal owners, or by the shareholders, in colliery concerns when they were led to believe that the mere sinking of a shaft and its subsequent development would lead to the production of millions of tons of coal. What it often led to was a loss of vast sums of money simply because of the technical and physical obstructions and all other kinds of difficulties, such as flooding.
With all good will and with all the technical ability available to the mining industry, which has some of the finest mining engineers in the world—there is nothing wrong with the technical ability of the Coal Board—it is possible to lose vast sums of money. I say to hon. Members opposite, "Curb the National Coal Board as you like, put all the inhibitions on capital investment intended by hon. Members opposite and apparently agreed to now by the right hon. Gentleman, and what will happen?" The result will be not the development of the coal industry and the output necessary for our industries to survive, but that the mining industry will be hamstrung.
I have a further point to make about the question of legitimate investment. Who can tell what is legitimate or illegitimate at the beginning? I say quite categorically that there is not a single mining engineer in this country—and I could name most of them—who would be able to prophesy with any degree of certainty that as a result of an expenditure of £5 million or £10 million in the sinking of a shaft and its subsequent development, it would be able to make that pit pay. It is quite impossible.
I have the experience in my constituency of a large colliery undertaking where they are driving many miles under the sea in order to produce coal because other seams are exhausted—seams which were expected to be prolific in coal production. As the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) reminds me, we are dealing with a wasting asset. As a result of the exhaustion of seams in South-East Durham, they are developing under the sea. They have discovered physical obstructions as a result of which it will cost many hundreds of thousands of pounds before any coal can be produced at all.
With all our ability and all our good will, how is it possible for us to determine whether the expenditure of £5 million or £10 million or £300 million will pay in the long run? In the coal industry it is largely speculative; we have to speculate to get the coal in the future. We may win out, and I believe it is the desire of the general public that we should win out and get the coal we need, but in spite of all the expenditure, all the fine plans, all the scrutinies and all the great care exercised by the right hon. Gentleman to placate his hon. Friends, there is no guarantee that we shall get the coal we need. We have to try it out. It is a very great task. We hope that we shall succeed, but there is no guarantee that we shall.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland (Mr. Palmer) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) were right; if we are to have a review or if a prospectus is submitted about the future of the fuel and power industries, they cannot be considered in water-tight compartments. I have said for a long time that the three fuel and power industries ought to be integrated; we ought to remove from them every element of competition. That is the first

stage. We cannot discuss that in detail now, and I merely put the point.
We have also to take the oil industry into account. It is not merely a question of the amount of oil which is being produced in various parts of the world. At any time it may be discovered by an industrial undertaking that it will pay it better to use oil rather than coal. If that becomes general, or if, as a result of propaganda, industrial undertakings prefer to use oil rather than coal, or if in the next 5, 10 or 15 years we see the beginning of the use of atomic energy, what will happen to the coal industry?
We must, therefore, take the whole subject in our stride, including both the production of coal from the bowels of the earth and open-cast production. I see the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Sir A. Braithwaite) here; he rendered great service to the nation, against a great many obstacles, in seeking to develop the production of open-cast coal. We must consider together the production of coal from the bowels of the earth, open-cast production—in spite of objections from the agricultural interests—oil production, electricity production, gas production and the production of by-products. We have not developed the production of by-products as we should have done. The right hon. Gentleman must take all these things in his stride, and if he is to produce a White Paper let him tell the whole story and not just part of it. It is like running a department store, if I may use a homely illustration.

The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris): I do not want to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but I am puzzled to find the connection between his argument and the Amendment.

Mr. Shinwell: We are dealing with whether we ought to reduce the amount of capital invested over a period in the mining industry, or whether we should revert to the original plan of the Coal Board.
I am coming to my conclusion. In dealing with the fuel and power industries, in which I include not only indigenous oil, but oil made available for distribution in this country, we must consider them all together. I use the illustration of a department store in which one loses money on one counter and makes it up on another. That is precisely


our position here. We may lose money on the production of coal from the bowels of the earth and make it up on opencast production, although that does not seem to be likely. We can gain profit from the production of electricity on a much more extensive scale than at present, for we have only touched the fringe of electricity supply in this country. We have also to consider, in the same context, the production of gas and by-products.
I have one further point to make. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Hon. Members may not like it but they have got to put up with it. This is the first time I have spoken in the House on coal in the last seven or eight years, but I recall the speeches made by the hon. Member for Kidderminster and the little good those speeches have done—a lot of carping criticism of the miners, with no contribution to the well-being of the mining industry, just a lot of silly blah-blah. That may do very well in Kidderminster. If that is what hon. Members opposite are after, it perhaps would be better if we heard less from the other side of the Committee than to go on talking as they do.
If we have a review of the fuel and power industries and a White Paper, let us have the whole story and see where we are. Let us see where the profits are derived and let the profits, from wherever they may be derived, be used for the benefit of the whole of the fuel and power industry, for the public and not for one part of the industry.

Colonel C. G. Lancaster: Those of us who, some years ago, took part in the Committee stage of the Coal Industry Nationalisation Bill will welcome the change of heart by the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) in the matter of obtaining information about the coal industry. I well remember that time after time on that occasion we pressed for more information, and I doubly welcome that at this time the right hon. Gentleman should have joined our ranks.
I want to return to what was said by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), in the concluding stage of his speech. I do not altogether quarrel with him in his long-term view; I hope that the time will come when we

can see the investment in the nationalised industries—coal, electricity and gas—in the wider context of the whole fuel outlook of this country, including oil and atomic energy, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Heeley (Sir P. Roberts) that we have to go one stage at a time.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East said there was a difference between the attitudes of some of my hon. Friends and myself towards the borrowing powers. I assure him that it is only one of degree and emphasis. I was by no means happy on the Second Reading of the Bill and I supported it with some reluctance. I was altogether unhappy about the new "Plan for Coal", for I did not think it compared in any way with the original plan, I thought it was a very loose bit of thinking, and I was hesitant that Parliament should vote this very large sum of money on such an imperfect piece of work.
Like almost everyone else in the Committee, however, I recognise that there must be a very large investment in this industry and I do not believe that any of us, certainly in all the discussions which have occurred recently about these borrowing powers, has wished either to curb the total amount, whether it be £1,000 million or the £350 million, which Parliament is asked to provide or to say that the Coal Board should spend £60 million or £100 million, or whatever it may be, in any one year.
Let us look, however, at the background to today's discussions. For 5½ years we had to follow the course of the first Plan for Coal, and although we saw it falling down, after the third year, there was little or no opportunity for the House to decide that it should be scrapped and a new plan put in its place. We had to go on year after year seeing very little return for this immense expenditure of money. It can hardly be a matter of surprise if when we come to the new "Plan for Coal" we are, naturally, somewhat sceptical.
5.0 p.m.
My right hon. Friend this afternoon has gone a long way to allay some of our worries. He has told us that there are to be these various forms of accountability. They are not complete, I admit, but they go a considerable way along the road. The White Paper, if it turns out


to be what I hope it will be, will afford to the House, if not every year, certainly on a number of occasions, not only an opportunity of seeing what has been accomplished, but an idea of what is envisaged in the ensuing period.
Here again, it would be a mistake for hon. Members, on either side, to assume there will be a desire to deny any part of the necessary investment. What we shall want to see generally is how the money is being laid out and what result is accruing from the investment. As the right hon. Member for Easington said, coal is not a precise industry; one cannot always guarantee that every investment will turn out right. I consider it a little less imprecise than the right hon. Gentleman indicated. I believe that we can go some considerable way towards accurate forecasting. Knowledge of geology and the general technique of mining are improving year by year. Although the industry is not completely precise, one should be able to get a good deal closer than the very general approach which has been made in the new "Plan for Coal".
What we want to see, and what I am sure even those who feel most strongly about the matter want to see, is that whether £60, £100 or £150 million has been expended or is contemplated, some result is coming from that expenditure. We do not want a similar situation to that which we have had in the past of very large expenditure, great parts of which have not fructified.
On Second Reading, I said that we should think again about the expenditure, if need be, on a geographical basis; that is to say, we should recognise that certain parts of the country no longer justify large investment and we should concentrate in certain areas where we can expect results. Fortunately, we have masses of coal in this country; there is no question of our running out of it for a hundred years or so.
What we lack at the moment is not good technicians—we have some of the best in the world—but the necessary numbers of technicians. That is our great problem. On that, I should like to say a word about the appointment of Mr. Collins to be in charge of this investment programme. I knew something of his work in the Ruhr shortly after the

war and, no doubt, the right hon. Member for Easington is familiar with what he did in those days. Mr. Collins did a first-class job and I think that his new appointment is excellent. I am sure we all wish him well in this important task.
Reverting to the general position, my right hon. Friend has gone a considerable way to allay our doubts. A lot will be determined by the precise form in which he brings out the White Paper. We do not want it in meticulous detail, but we want it sufficiently clearly put before the House so that we can be satisfied that this money is being well spent. I am quite sure that if it is well spent there will never be an occasion on which anyone would wish to circumscribe the activities of the Coal Board—that is not our intention. Indeed, if the Coal Board is sensible, and does its job properly, it may get a good deal of credit from the way its schemes turn out. If it does well, I am sure it will get praise from the House. If it does badly, we shall have to look at these things again.
Let us on this occasion, however, assume that the Coal Board will get down to it and do a good job of work. If it does, there will be no harm in the White Paper; only good will come out of it. For that reason, I strongly support my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Hamilton: The hon. and gallant Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster) is one of the more reasonable Members on the Government side and usually presents a constructive case which, whilst we may not agree with it, we are prepared to understand. What we on this side are worried about is the destructive effects of the arguments of hon. Members opposite and their general approach to nationalised industry.
I was not a Member of the House between 1945 and 1950 but one can quite understand that the Government of that time, in seeking to nationalise the coal industry, were bound to make what was in the nature of an experiment. All of us, on all sides, should recognise that and be prepared to make adjustments according to our experience. We on this side are prepared to do that, and we would support hon. Members opposite who were prepared to do it if they were doing so on a constructive basis. We are not convinced that the Minister has produced the


Amendment on that basis. We on this side know, and the Press and whole nation know, that the right hon. Gentleman has simply succumbed to the yelping mongrels of the 1922 Committee.
It is not the first time that pressure has been brought to bear on Members of a Tory Government. The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor had a similar experience. I remember him coming to the Box and lauding the achievements of the nationalised Coal Board and getting into hot water with his hon. Friends for it. He had to go, and now I am not altogether sure that the right hon. Gentleman's tenure of office will be a very long one.
Let us, however, get down to what is, I hope, basically the reason for the Amendment—the question of public accountability. Anything that increases the public accountability of the nationalised industries will be welcomed on this side, but if hon. and right hon. Members opposite are to be consistent they must also insist on the maximum amount of public accountability for, for instance, the spending of farm subsidies.
When Lady Garbett, who was drawing farm subsidies, was evicted for misspending public money, the hue and cry came from hon. Members opposite because she was evicted for that reason. If the principle of public accountability applies to the Coal Board, it must apply also to the inefficient farmer, but we do not hear that from hon. Members opposite. I see, Sir Rhys, that you are about to rise to call me to order. I am on the extremely valid point of public accountability, on which the Minister has moved the Amendment to increase the power of the House over the finances of the Coal Board.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) was quite right in saying that there can be no possibility of a high degree of accuracy in estimating the capital investment programme of the National Coal Board. The hon. and gallant Member for South Fylde said that there should be a more accurate assessment than in the past, but he gave no examples to show where the Board has been grossly inaccurate in its assessments.
I can give one example from my constituency which illustrates the difficulties

under which the National Coal Board is labouring. In 1946, prior to nationalisation, the private coal industry in Fife cut the first sod of a coal pit. Only now, 10 years later, are we beginning to get a trickle of coal from it. The venture was not started by the National Coal Board, but by the privately-owned coal industry. Nine million pounds has already been spent on that pit, against an original estimate of £5 million, and we are still not getting more than a trickle of coal. That kind of thing is happening up and down the country. Because of that, the Board's programmes have to be reassessed as the years go by. The original Plan for Coal made that quite clear, just as this one does.
I am not quite sure that the White Paper which the right hon. Gentleman has promised the House will be of any value whatever if it is not viewed in the context of a national fuel policy. If it is going to be simply a critical examination of the National Coal Board, taken out of the context of a national fuel policy, it will be quite valueless. I have yet to be convinced by the right hon. Gentleman that he is introducing the Amendment for any other reason than that considerable pressure has been exerted upon him by the 1922 Committee, which is costing the nation dear in regard to the nationalised industries, Suez, Cyprus and other matters.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: Although the Amendment deals with the relatively narrow question whether or not we should insert a limiting period of five years in the Bill, the debate has ranged over a much wider field. I trust that I shall be forgiven if I confine myself mainly to the contents of the Amendment.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) and the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. Hamilton) all objected to the inclusion of the period of five years, but not one of them advanced a single reason why that period should not be included. They rested their objection upon a suspicion that the Amendment had been put down merely as an act of deference to some of my hon. Friends. I can assure them that I have a most respectable precedent for the inclusion of a five-year limit, and I am astonished that the right hon. Member for Easington should have forgotten it. I refer to the nationalisation Statute


of 1946, Section 26 of which provided for advances to the total sum of £150 million for five years.
If it was proper to include such a period in that Statute, why is it improper to include it in the Bill? If it is suggested that it will cripple the Coal Board and subject it to uncertainty, why did not the inclusion of such a limit have the same effect then?

Mr. Nabarro: A very good riposte.

Mr. Shinwell: At the inception of nationalisation there was a great deal of uncertainty as to what would happen. As I pointed out in my speech from the Government Front Bench during the Second Reading debate, it was an experiment. We had no guarantee from mining engineers such as Sir Charles Reid or Mr. Eric Young, or any other eminent mining engineer, about how much coal we could produce. All we had to go by was the Reid Report. There was a great deal of uncertainty and speculation about the matter, and that is why the limit of five years was included. But experience should have taught the right hon. Gentleman that it is quite unwise to place a limit upon the period of capital investment.

Mr. Jones: If there was a great deal of uncertainty in 1946, it surely pointed to the exclusion rather than the inclusion of a time limit. Now there is greater certainty.

Mr. Callaghan: Is the Minister going to answer the question? Why has he changed his mind between the Second Reading debate, when he asked us to give a Second Reading to a Bill which had a 10-year limit for borrowing, and the Committee stage, when he says that he wants a five-year limit?

Mr. Jones: As yet, hon. Members opposite have not given me much chance to reply to what they have said. The objection advanced by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East was that I was condemning the Coal Board to uncertainty. Let me once again quote the Board's application, as given on page 21 of "Investing in Coal". The fourth paragraph says:
Under existing legislation the balance of the Board's borrowing powers was about £50 million at the end of 1955. The Board have therefore sought new powers.
That is the purpose of the Bill.
They may require to borrow up to an additional £400 million in the next five years.
Five years is the period of time in which the Board required the advance. How then, if I include a period of five years, do I condemn the Board to uncertainty? I am merely carrying out what the Board originally asked for.
5.15 p.m.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East asked why I do so now when I did not do so in the Bill originally. I would refer to what the right hon. Member for Easington said. He welcomed more discussion upon these matters. So do I. In my opening speech I explained that I welcomed more discussion, with the proviso that the Board, in its long-term investment plan, should not be condemned to uncertainty. Under the Act preceding this piece of legislation—the 1951 Act—the investment was intended to cover the extremely long period of 15 years, and it was couched in such language that it was not expected that the matter would ever again return to the House for discussion.
As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster) said, that Measure went too far to one extreme. By the insertion of the Amendment I am providing an opportunity for a review of the plan halfway through its life, but without condemning the Coal Board to uncertainty. I believe quite as strongly now as I did at the time of the Second Reading debate that one of the reasons for the present inadequate coal production is inadequate investment in the past, and that for too long the Coal Board has paid overmuch attention to immediate output, to the neglect of future output.

Mr. David Grenfell: And manpower.

Mr. Jones: I believe that there is now a change, and that the Coal Board attaches importance to investment and future production.

Mr. Grenfell: This is not a matter of controversy.

Mr. Jones: The last thing that I wish to do is to jeopardise in any way the investment plans of the Coal Board, or to throw it back into the state of mind in which it was in the earlier years of


nationalisation. Investment must go ahead, and it will do so, despite the Amendment.

Mr. Callaghan: Yes—despite the Amendment.

Mr. Jones: Indeed, with the help of the Amendment, because it will provide opportunities for fuller discussion and, I hope, for the House of Commons to be more informed upon matters which are of importance to it.
I now come to the White Paper, which is not strictly relevant to the Amendment, but complements it. The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East was most dogmatic upon what the White Paper would or would not contain. All I ask him to do is to wait and see. I have had many suggestions about what should be included in it, and I shall pay close attention to them all. At this juncture, however, I should like to comment upon two points. More than one hon. Member asked whether or not the figures for investment in nuclear power would be included in the White Paper.

Mr. Nabarro: The answer is "Yes."

Mr. Jones: The answer is clearly in the affirmative, because that matter comes under the purview of the Central Electricity Authority.

The Deputy-Chairman: I have been puzzled by the mention of the White Paper throughout the debate upon this Amendment. It cannot be in order in a discussion of the Amendment to consider what will be in the White Paper.

Mr. Callaghan: Will it be in order, Sir Rhys, to discuss it on the Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill?

The Deputy-Chairman: I cannot imagine that a discussion on the White Paper is in order at all. No White Paper is mentioned in the Amendment.

Mr. Callaghan: This places us all in great difficulty. Hon. Members on this side of the Committee did not introduce the question of the White Paper; it was introduced by the Minister, and it has been referred to in the course of the debate by myself and several other hon. Members, following the Minister's proposition. May I submit that it is relevant in the sense that it is one of the reasons

advanced by the Minister in his efforts to persuade the Committee to accept the Amendment? Is he regards it as relevant to that extent, hon. Members on this side of the Committee would like to hear details of the matters which the Minister intends to include in it

The Deputy-Chairman: I do not know how the subject of White Paper was introduced at all at the beginning of the debate. But this Amendment has nothing to do with a White Paper, the contents of which we have not seen.

Mr. Shinwell: Further to that point of order, Sir Rhys. When the Minister set forth his proposals contained in the Amendment, and in the subsequent discussion, it was obvious that we were considering not merely the period of capital investment and the amount, but the need for a review of the whole situation. That was obviously the context in which we were discussing any period of investment and the amount; and how is it possible to isolate one from the other?

The Deputy-Chairman: I understand the reference to the White Paper, but now we are going a great deal beyond that. Now we are proposing to discuss what the White Paper should contain, and that has nothing to do with this Amendment.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Further to that point of order, Sir Rhys. Your predecessor in the Chair allowed my right hon. Friend a good deal of latitude in his opening statement to say exactly why he was introducing a White Paper and what it would contain; and the subsequent debate, for the last two hours, has been on the White Paper. It is most relevant to the decision whether or not this Amendment should be accepted.

The Deputy-Chairman: I understand that there was certain latitude allowed, but I have been puzzled by the nature of this debate on the Amendment, because a White Paper which no one has seen cannot be relevant to an Amendment to this Clause. The question of going a step further and discussing what the White Paper shall contain certainly does not arise on this Amendment.

Mr. Jones: I am sorry if I was out of order. I merely represented the White Paper as being complementary to this


Amendment for the insertion of five years into the Bill. All I will say on the question of the White Paper is that I will give close attention to the suggestions which have been made and will endeavour to make the White Paper as comprehensive and informative as possible, compatible with my statutory responsibilities.

Mr. Palmer: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Jones: No, time is getting on——

Mr. Shinwell: But this is the Committee stage.

Mr. Jones: —and a Royal Commission is due. With respect, I think that it would be desirable to complete the discussion on this Amendment before that happens.
If I may revert to the Amendment, it was suggested by the right hon. Member for Easington that this represented a reduction in the total sum, but there is no reduction at all. My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) asked how it was that the Coal Board expected to be self-financing after five years. I will give the answer to that question which I gave during the Second Reading debate. Investment is heaviest in the earlier years. After that it declines, and at the same time, in the later years, depreciation provisions will accrue from heavier past investment. Therefore, the Coal Board expects to be self-financing in five years' time.
My hon. Friend repeated the question which he put during the Second Reading debate—on what principles of price and depreciation was this estimate based? If, inadvertently, I omitted to answer his question during the Second Reading debate, I am sorry. The omission was inadvertent because the answer, as it framed itself in my mind, was in two phases, and I jumped to the second phase because I assumed that he was knowledgeable about the first.
Surely the answer is that it is expected that over the next five years the Board will break even, that there will be no deficit. That is in the passage on page 21 of the document "Investing in Coal" from which I quoted. It is assumed that depreciation will still be related to past historical costs, and that is a natural assumption. During the debate on Second Reading I explained that if changes were made in the basis of depreciation, and if

depreciation henceforth was related to current costs rather than past costs, a change which I did not exclude, that change should be made for all nationalised industries in general. In the case of coal it would mean that the Board would be self-financing before the expiry of five years.

Mr. Nabarro: This is a matter which clearly must be discussed——

Mr. Shinwell: Why should the Minister give way to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro)?

Mr. Nabarro: My right hon. Friend is answering a question which I put to him, and I am grateful to him for doing so.
I recognise that the depreciation provisions which affect the borrowing powers of the Board are a very complex matter which we cannot deal with by debate in this Committee. Would my right hon. Friend undertake to ask the Chairman of the National Coal Board to enlarge, in the next Report and Accounts, on what has been done in the past on the matter of depreciation provisions, all of which would be of considerable educational value to hon. Members of this Committee?

Mr. Palmer: May I ask, Sir Rhys, whether it is in order—it is against the normal usage in Committee discussions—for the right hon. Gentleman to refuse to give way to an hon. Member on the opposite side of the Committee—and the Opposition have some precedence in these matters—while, apparently, giving unlimited time to his own supporters to interrupt him?

The Deputy-Chairman: That is not a point of order for me. It is for whoever is in possession of the Floor to decide whether or not to give way.

Mr. Jones: I think that I have been liberal in giving way to hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the Committee.
If this Amendment is accepted, the Bill will provide for advances to the extent of £350 million over a period of five years. That is what the Coal Board asks for, and since this provision corresponds with its request, it would follow that the plans of the Board are not subjected to any uncertainty.

Several Hon. Members: rose——

The Deputy-Chairman: Mr. Palmer.

Mr. John McKay: On a point of order, Sir Rhys. When several hon. Members are standing and trying to catch your eye, is it in order for an hon. Member to be called a second time before other hon. Members have had a chance to speak?

The Deputy-Chairman: It is perfectly in order. I did not see the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. McKay).

Mr. Palmer: I wish to take up a point which seems to have been overlooked by the Minister in his hurry to bring the discussion to a conclusion, although there is plenty of time. I know that, relatively speaking—I say this with respect—the right hon. Gentleman has had a short experience as a Minister. But he must understand that his own supporters—or alleged supporters—have taken up a tremendous amount of time, and therefore many hon. Members on this side of the Committee who desire to put forward one or two points have not had the opportunities which they deserve.
The Minister said that we should get relevant details of nuclear energy development because that would come under the Central Electricity Authority. But the Atomic Energy Authority is also carrying on development on its own account, and it would be most interesting to know if the investment plans of the Atomic Energy Authority affecting the electric power will be contained in the White Paper when it appears, because the figures are relevant. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Calder Hall station is not a power station of the Central Electricity Authority.

Mr. Jones: I will certainly consider what I can do about that aspect of the matter.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Iorwerth Thomas: Bearing in mind your Ruling, Sir Rhys, regarding the scope of the debate, I am wondering whether I shall be deprived of the opportunity of dispelling an illusion which seems still to be hovering in the minds of certain hon. Gentlemen opposite. The demand for restriction and curbing, and for putting the National Coal Board's finances into a strait jacket is motivated, so they tell us, with the best of intentions. The whole basis—

Orders of the Day — ROYAL ASSENT

Whereupon, The GENTLEMAN USHER OF THE BLACK ROD being come with a Message, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair.

Mr. SPEAKERresumed the Chair.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.

The House went; and, having returned—

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1. Occasional Licences and Young Persons Act, 1956.
2. Local Government Elections Act, 1956.
3. Magistrates' Courts (Appeals from Binding Over Orders) Act, 1956.
4. Small Lotteries and Gaming Act, 1956.
5. Administration of Justice Act, 1956.
6. National Insurance Act, 1956.
7. Sugar Act, 1956.
8. Agriculture (Safety, Health and Welfare Provisions) Act, 1956.
9. Family Allowances and National Insurance Act, 1956.
10. Workmen's Compensation and Benefit (Supplementation) Act, 1956.
11. Clean Air Act, 1956.
12. Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1956.
13. Frances Barker and certain other Charities (City of York) Scheme Confirmation Act, 1956.
14. Consolidated Municipal Charity and certain other Charities (Ludlow) Scheme Confirmation Act, 1956.
15. Hospital of Robert Earl of Leicester Charity (Warwick) Scheme Confirmation Act, 1956.
16. Sutton's Hospital (Charterhouse) Charity Scheme Confirmation Act, 1956.
17. Advocates' Widows' Fund Order Confirmation Act, 1956.
18. Glasgow Corporation Order Confirmation Act, 1956.
19. Dover Corporation Act, 1956.
20. Bristol Corporation Act, 1956.
21. North-East Surrey Crematorium Board Act, 1956.
22. London County Council (Money) Act, 1956.


23. Bournemouth-Swanage Motor Road and Ferry Act, 1956.
24. Bedford Corporation Act, 1956.
25. Scottish Union and National Insurance Company's Act, 1956.
26. Tyne Tunnel Act, 1956.
27. People's Dispensary for Sick Animals Act, 1956.
28. London Necropolis Act, 1956.

And to the following Measures, passed under the provisions of the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919:—

Representation of the Laity Measure, 1956.

Parochial Church Councils (Powers) Measure, 1956.

Orders of the Day — COAL INDUSTRY BILL

Again considered in Committee.

[Sir RHYS HOPKIN MORRIS in the Chair]

Question again proposed, That those words be there inserted.

Mr. Iorwerth Thomas: As I was proceeding to tell the Committee, hon. Members opposite have used very strong language and, by insinuation and implication, have given the impression in Committee and on Second Reading of the Bill that a wasteful and—to borrow a term—an illegitimate capital investment programme has been pursued by the National Coal Board in the last seven or eight years. They have suggested that the investment policy up to now has been of such poor quality that it does not give them confidence in the future propositions of the Coal Board as reflected in the plan "Investing for Coal."
I charge hon. Members opposite that, despite all the oratory, all the rhetoric and showmanship displayed throughout these debates, in the course of the Second Reading or during this stage they have not been able to specify one example of bad investment by the Coal Board.

Mr. Nabarro: If the hon. Member will allow us to get on to the next Amendment, he will find that it is in relation to that Amendment that the illegitimate investment to which he has referred will be discussed.

Mr. Thomas: I do not want to anticipate what the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) is going to say.

We are all acquainted with the repetition which we have suffered and endured in the House for a long time, and we can anticipate his argument. I am dealing with what was said on Second Reading and with what has not been said. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have been unable to specify one scheme where the Board's investment plan has been wasteful, with the exception mentioned by the hon. Member for Kidderminster of a pit in South Wales.
Surely the demand by the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends for restriction on the Board's manoeuvrability as reflected in the Bill rests solely on Nantgarw. The hon. Gentleman stated that the Board had spent so many million pounds in investment in that pit which was estimated to have an annual output of more than 700,000 tons but up to the present the output has been far below that, being about 300,000 tons. Perhaps the hon. Member is not aware of the pit's history. It is an example of why the Board has failed to produce the necessary coal in the time. The Nantgarw colliery was left derelict because private enterprise failed to win the coal from it. The pit was sunk by a Tom Taylor, and in those days hundreds of thousands of pounds were lost——

Mr. Nabarro: Surely the hon. Member is out of order?

The Deputy-Chairman: It is not in order to go into the history of the pit.

Mr. Thomas: The demand for a restriction on the Board's manoeuvrability in relation to borrowing is based on a charge about its wilful maladministration of the nation's capital during recent years. Hon. Members opposite have been able to give no example to the Committee except that of Nantgarw. The hon. Member for Kidderminster quoted the Nantgarw failure——

Mr. Nabarro: On a point of order, Sir Rhys. You ruled earlier that matters of this kind were out of order. You were not in the Chair when I referred to Nantgarw. I cited it as an example of the need for accountability, which is in order, presumably, but I imagine that it would certainly be out of order to go into the whole question of the development of the mine.

The Deputy-Chairman: That is just what I have pointed out, that it would be out of order to go into the history of a certain pit on the Amendment. The Amendment is a very narrow one.

Mr. Shinwell: Further to the point of order. With respect, Sir Rhys, I cannot understand your Ruling. The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), in order to reinforce his argument about the need for accountability and what he calls "legitimate" investment and the need to exercise great care before proceeding with projects, used Nantgarw as an illustration that money had been lost. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, West (Mr. Iorwerth Thomas), who is acquainted with the subject, is seeking to reply to that point. If it was raised on the other side of the Committee as a means of influencing the Committee in one direction, surely it is permissible for an hon. Friend of mine to use a contrary argument to influence the Committee in the other direction?

The Deputy-Chairman: I did not hear the speech of the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), and so I am not able to express any opinion on it. It is legitimate to refer to the colliery, but it is not relevant to the Amendment to go into its history.

Mr. Thomas: My remarks are directed to what the hon. Member for Kidderminster said. His statement has left the impression that the maladministration in investment at Nantgarw is a reason why there should now be accountability. In dealing with the history of the example which was quoted by the hon. Member from the Daily Express, I am attempting to show that the Board has not failed, but has succeeded in its capital investment programme at the colliery. If I can eradicate that impression from the biased minds of hon. Members opposite, I may win some of them over to our point of view.
I have said that the pit was sunk by Tom Taylor. It did not meet with success. Subsequently, the great giant in South Wales, Powell Duffryn, tried it and failed. Eventually the National Coal Board came along, and it succeeded in transforming the abandoned, derelict colliery into what it is today.
I want to bring a very important point before the Committee. It is a point which was mentioned by the Minister in his last statement. I do not think he desired to leave in the minds of hon. Members the impression that he did. He said that the Board's failure to switch manpower and techniques to new production has been responsible for disappointments in output. I do not think he wanted deliberately to give the impression that any guilt attached to the Board in that respect, but it pinpoints the fundamental issue which has led to the request for increased borrowing powers.
The Board was not a free agent. It was compelled to follow the policy which it has been pursuing during the past five or six years. It was not a free agent because of the overriding consideration of what was best in the interests of the national economy. The Board had to have regard for this in its effort to obtain from available resources the coal necessary to meet the requirements of the national economy. In that respect the coal industry has been the cinderella of the British economy. Its manpower, from the Board down to the collier and the collier boy, was forced to apply its energy to extracting coal from any quarter so long as it was coal that was obtained. In that process it had to comply with the policy of the Labour Government and the Conservative Government in order to ensure that our economy could expand to the extent that it has. That is why the Board has been unable to develop as it would wish to have done in recent years.
6.0 p.m.
The Board realises that the coal production capacity is now deteriorating at such a pace that a new appraisal of the situation must be made. The Board, therefore, comes to this House to ask for this money in order to develop these projects; to switch its technicians, its mining engineers and a substantial volume of its manpower to those projects in the next five years. We should not, therefore, accept this gloomy gospel that the Coal Board has failed in its obligations to the country. There are no financial deficiencies at all, and any production deficiencies are due to the fact that the Coal Board's policy has been to look to the national interest first and to consider its balance-sheet as a secondary matter.
It has been said that what the Coal Board is demanding is the spending of taxpayers' money. How dare hon. Members opposite accuse the Board of coming cap in hand, like a pauper or a beggar, to cadge money from the taxpayers to finance its projects during the next five years? Where does this money come from? Who are the taxpayers of the country? Do the miners ask the taxpayers to meet the £21 million interest on loans that the industry has to bear? Do the miners and the Coal Board at this juncture ask the taxpayers and the consumers to meet the £13 million compensation paid to the former coal owners? They do not. The truth really is that in the past——

Mr. Dudley Williams: On a point of order, Sir Charles. I have been looking at the Amendment and I cannot see what relationship the hon. Member's speech has to it. I wonder if he is in order?

The Chairman: The point in this Amendment is quite a narrow one and I hope that hon. Members will keep to it, because we have been a very long time on it.

Mr. Callaghan: It may be a narrow point, but the discussion has ranged over such matters as investment in the oil industry, the production of the White Paper to cover the whole of the investment in the fuel industry, and a great many other matters—including whether or not the Nantgarw colliery, near Cardiff, is efficient. My hon. Friend is answering some of the misrepresentations made from the benches opposite about the Coal Board.

The Chairman: Well, they should not have been made.

Mr. Callaghan: We will fully agree with both that sentiment and the reason for it. I am sure you will understand, Sir Charles, that I do not mean this personally, but there is the difficulty that if a debate starts in this way it would be unfair to stop my hon. Friend from replying about matters within his personal knowledge, when, in his view, misrepresentations have been made about which there would otherwise be no answer given.

The Chairman: I quite appreciate that point, and certainly, when the White Paper was mentioned, I thought there would be trouble, but I hope that we can now get on.

Mr. S. O. Davies: Further to that point of order, Sir Charles. I have an idea that you were not in the Chair when the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) made a long oration on the protection of the taxpayers' money. He said that the House should scrutinise every £ invested in the industry and should know beforehand how much coal we were to get for each £. I do not think that you were in the Chair when the Committee had to suffer that oration.

Mr. Thomas: I will attempt to bring my argument to a conclusion, because there is probably plenty of scope for me to say what I wish on the Amendments that follow. At the same time, I think that I am entitled to remove the impression made by speeches from the benches opposite. If the charges made by hon. Members opposite are not destroyed, I think that we are allowing a very malicious slander to persist, and accepting speeches that are not only a defamation of the Coal Board, but a libel against our miners. It is my duty, as an ex-miner, to protect the honour, integrity and dignity of the 700,000 men employed in the industry.
Hon. Members opposite have been very articulate, but as yet the Committee has not heard from them a single specific example to substantiate what they have said. Neither on Second Reading nor in this Committee have they been able to quote any major scheme proposed and carried out by the National Coal Board which was wasteful or illegitimate capital expenditure.

Mr. Callaghan: I do not want to stop any hon. Member on either side from speaking, but we have had a long debate on this particular Amendment and there are others to come, and I would certainly yield to your plea, Sir Charles, that we should come to a conclusion on this particular matter as soon as possible. I must say to the Minister that we feel very dissatisfied with his reply. Although he complained when I interjected that I had not given him a chance to answer


what I asked, he continued to the end of his speech without attempting to give an answer.
He was saying that he has brought in the period of five years during which the Coal Board shall have power to borrow this money because there is a respectable precedent for it in the original Act, and because the Board, in any case, wants power to borrow the money only over a period of five years. What he did not answer was this. He knew, or should have known, all these facts when he prepared his original Bill. His original Bill asked the House—and we propose to vote for the original proposition—to give the Coal Board a period of ten years in which to borrow this money. The Minister has given the Committee no reason at all why, between the printing and the Second Reading of this Bill, he should alter his mind and, during the Committee stage, alter the period from 10 years to five.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: The hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but there was never any term of years mentioned in the Bill at all.

Mr. Callaghan: I fully agree with the Minister. I do not think that I put the point accurately and will try again. Although the Minister is correct in the letter, I do not think that he will deny that the intention was that the borrowing should be over a period of 10 years. If that is not so, I must say that there is no other hon. Member, certainly on this side, who understood that it was for a period of five years, and I am surprised if he says that that was the intention. It was certainly never the intention we had in our minds nor, I am sure, was it in the mind of any reasonable person who read what was in the White Paper accompanying the Bill, or who read the Bill, or who heard the Minister's speech.
I do not want to be unfair to the Minister and, if he wants me to, I shall gladly give way, but I must say that in the absence of an answer we jump to what we believe is the natural conclusion, that he has done this by yielding to pressure from the rebels below the Gangway. I am sure that every person who considers this will believe that that is true. If ever I were tempted to believe a lot of what

Mr. Freud says it was when the Minister made that slip of the tongue and said that, despite the Amendment, the Board would still get the money when it wanted it. That, I believe, really sums up his attitude to the Amendment. He says. "I will placate them. I will give them the period they want. I do not think it will make any real difference to the Coal Board, but at least it will appear as if they have got something, and they will help me get the rest of the Bill." We are not ready to have this business done from below the Gangway by hon. Members who have no responsibility for what is being done.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: It would be worse if it were done by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Callaghan: The noble Lord has made no contribution to this debate except from a sitting position. If he wants to make a speech, let him get up and do so later on. The Minister has done nothing at all to change our views, which are very strongly held, that what he is doing is to give his rebels below the Gangway the opportunity from time to time to muckrake in this industry and to produce all the dirt, in the same way that the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) produced an entirely false impression this afternoon about the Nantgarw pit. There are miners in my constituency who work in that pit, and they can put the hon. Gentleman right on his facts.
I say to the Lord Privy Seal that if he wants a discussion on accountability later on, we shall have to take into account the atmosphere which has preceded it this afternoon. We are not prepared to let the Amendment go through in this way. We are going to vote for the Bill which the Minister originally brought forward and from which he is now running away.

Several Hon. Members: rose——

The Chairman: I think that the Committee is now ready to come to a decision.

Mr. McKay: No.

The Chairman: I hope that any speeches which will follow will keep closely to the Amendment.

Mr. McKay: I want to make a contribution, as other hon. Members have done, and I do not want to take up too much time. I have sat here throughout the whole of the debate, and I think it is within the rules of the House that I have the opportunity to speak, if I wish to do so.
The chief purpose of this Bill is to obtain the money necessary for the development of the coal industry. No doubt, the Minister gave a good deal of thought to this matter before he introduced his Bill, and now he has changed his attitude considerably, which makes many of us wonder how it has all come about. We on this side of the Committee are all convinced that a small number of rebels and back benchers on the other side of the Committee have succeeded in gaining a point. However, I am not particularly anxious to debate that matter.
The point is that there is an Amendment on the Order Paper, and there seems to be a feeling in the minds of the Minister and his colleagues that this Amendment will tend to make the Coal Board more efficient. They want new possibilities of having discussions in the House relating to the coal industry, because they believe that by that means it will be possible to give directions to the Coal Board in order to produce more efficiency.
6.15 p.m.
This Amendment raises the whole question of the best method of getting more efficiency in the coal industry. If it does not achieve that, it simply means more discussion with no increase in efficiency. As I understood the speech of the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), his main point was that such an opportunity would enable the Committee to give advice on the best means of improving the situation in the coal industry. If the hon. Gentleman's speech did not have that object in view, there must be some ulterior object, such as giving a greater opportunity to level criticism in the House against the National Coal Board. But if such criticism is made, will it produce more efficiency in the coal industry?
When discussing the coal industry we have to realise that we are dealing with one of the most vital matters affecting this country. We are dealing with an industry upon which the whole economic

salvation of the country depends. One of the essential things which we have to try to cultivate in Parliament is good will in the industry. Therefore, we should not spend too much time indulging in carping criticism.
There has recently been appointed a new Chairman of the National Coal Board. He, with other new officials, has to consider the Fleck Report. One of the effective instruments of efficiency in the coal industry is to have at the head of affairs a man who has the confidence of the miners themselves. It is a matter of opinion whether the new Chairman will create more efficiency in future, but I have been a close colleague of Jim Bowman; I know his personality, his courage and determination, as well as his knowledge of the mining industry and his general ability. He is the right man in the right place.

The Chairman: No doubt he is, but that does not arise on the Amendment.

Mr. McKay: To suggest that this Amendment will tend to achieve greater efficiency in the coal trade, and better use of the money which this Bill envisages, is to suggest that the best and most skilful advice to be given to the coal industry can come from this House and the discussions which take place here. To my mind, that is the greatest bunkum ever uttered about the coal industry.
The men most likely to contribute the most towards efficiency, those who have the greatest knowledge of the industry, are the men at the head; they are the men who have all the technical advice which is necessary, and it has been admitted, I understand, that we now have the best technical advice in the coal industry that we can ever expect to have. Taking all these things into consideration, it is nonsense to suggest that this House can give more efficient advice and direction to the Coal Board on doing its job than the very people who are best fitted to do it. There is no question that the body best fitted for that task is the Coal Board itself.
I do not want to take up too much time. To begin with——

Mr. Nabarro: The hon. Gentleman is surely not starting all over again?

Mr. McKay: —there is no doubt that this Amendment will not add to good will in the industry. We must consider


not only what the House of Commons can do but what others can do. There is a third party involved, and we must take out third party insurance if we want to carry on the coal industry. That third party is the miners. If hon. Members want peace in the coal industry, they must not pass legislation which will tend to give rise to a lot of facile criticism with no effective result in efficiency, because if they do they are likely to develop and encourage the very thing which is most to be avoided, that is to say that the men who go down the pits, the men who have been sacrificing their families for years, getting two weeks holiday per year, and working for £9 a week, will feel a very strong sense of frustration. That sort of thing would put the miners' backs up. Apart from what the hon. Member for Kidderminster may think about saving the taxpayers' money, the men who pay the taxes can have something to say in other directions. If the men in the coal industry are prepared to press forward their just claims for something proportionate in the way of holidays, proportionate in the sense of the holidays that we get—

The Chairman: Order. I have been very generous; we really are a long way from the Amendment now. I hope that the hon. Member will try to keep to the Amendment.

Mr. McKay: I will finish in a minute, Sir Charles; I understand the necessity for getting on with business, and I do not want to outrun my opportunity.
I do want to emphasise the last point which I was making. There has been the miners' conference this week, and the miners have indicated certain things that they require. That is another side to the industry. If there is to be this continued carping criticism and suggestions that the coal mining industry is not doing what it should be doing, there are likely to be results which hon. Members do not at the moment expect.
All I want to say is this. Ordinary healthy discussion of the coal trade or any other big industry over which we have any control whatever is to my mind good if done for a good purpose. That is the vital question. Is it because we want to bring real, healthy, sympathetic good will and criticism to bear, or is it that we really want to continue, as we have done on many past occasions, criticising to a fault, weakening the desire for more nationalisation, treading upon the toes of the coal industry and other nationalised industries? That sort of thing may go on, but we must remember that it has its evils, and there are limits beyond which it ought not to go.

Question put, That those words be there inserted:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 208, Noes 141.

Division No. 253.]
AYES
[6.26 p.m.


Alport, C. J. M.
Campbell, Sir David
Fisher, Nigel


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Cary, Sir Robert
Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.


Arbuthnot, John
Channon, H.
Fletcher-Cooke, C.


Armstrong, C. W.
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Fort, R.


Ashton, H.
Cole, Norman
Foster, John


Atkins, H. E.
Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert
Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cambe &amp; Lonsdale)


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Freeth, D. K.


Baldwin, A. E.
Corfield, Capt. F. V.
Garner-Evans, E. H.


Balniel, Lord
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
George, J. C. (Pollok)


Barlow, Sir John
Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)
Glover, D.


Barter, John
Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)
Godber, J. B.


Baxter, Sir Beverley
Cunningham, Knox
Green, A.


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Currie, G. B. H.
Gresham Cooke, R.


Bidgood, J. C.
Dance, J. C. G.
Grimond, J.


Biggs-Davison, J. A.
Davidson, Viscountess
Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)


Bishop, F. P.
Deedes, W. F.
Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.


Black, C. W.
Digby, Simon Wingfield
Gurden, Harold


Boothby, Sir Robert
Doughty, C. J. A.
Hall, John (Wycombe)


Bossom, Sir Alfred
Drayson, G. B.
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)


Boyle, Sir Edward
du Cann, E. D. L.
Harris, Reader (Heston)


Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)
Duthie, W. S.
Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)


Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)


Brooman-White, R. C.
Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn
Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)


Browne, J. Nixon (Craigton)
Errington, Sir Eric
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)


Bryan, P.
Erroll, F. J.
Hay, John


Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.
Farey-Jones, F. W.
Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel


Burden, F. F. A.
Fell, A.
Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G.


Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)
Finlay, Graeme
Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)




Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
McLaughlin, Mrs. P.
Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Maclay, Rt. Hon. John
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Hirst, Geoffrey
Maclean, Fitzroy (Lancaster)
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard


Holland-Martin, C. J.
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Russell, R. S.


Holt, A. F.
Madden, Martin
Schofield, Lt.-Col. W.


Hornby, R. P.
Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)
Sharples, R. C.


Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.
Markham, Major Sir Frank
Shepherd, William


Horobin, Sir Ian
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Spearman, Sir Alexander


Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence
Marshall, Douglas
Spans, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)


Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)
Mathew, R.
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard


Howard, John (Test)
Maude, Angus
Stevens, Geoffrey


Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)
Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)


Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J
Monckton, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter
Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)


Hyde, Montgomery
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)


Hylton-Foster, Sir H. B. H.
Nabarro, G. D. N.
Studholme, Sir Henry


Iremonger, T. L.
Nairn, D. L. S.
Summers, Sir Spencer


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Neave, Airey
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th. E. &amp; Chr'ch)
Teeling, W.


Jennings, J. C. (Burton)
Nield, Basil (Chester)
Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)


Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Nugent, G. R. H.
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)
Oakshott, H. D.
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, S.)


Jones, Rt. Hon. Aubrey (Hall Green)
O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)
Tlley, A. (Bradford, W.)


Keegan, D.
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Kerby, Capt. H. B.
Page, R. G.
Touche, Sir Gordon


Kerr, H. W.
Partridge, E.
Turner, H. F. L.


Kershaw, J. A.
Peyton, J. W. W.
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Kimball, M.
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Vane, W. M. F.


Kirk, P. M.
Pllkington, Capt. R. A.
Vosper, D. F.


Lagden, G. W.
Pitman, I. J.
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Powell, J. Enoch
Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)


Langford-Holt, J. A.
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)
Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold


Leather, E. H. C.
Raikes, Sir Victor
Whitelaw, W.S.I. (Penrith &amp; Border)


Leavey, J. A.
Rawlinson, Peter
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Legg-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Redmayne, M.
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Wills, G. (Bridgwater)


Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)
Remnant, Hon. P.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Renton, D. L. M.
Woollam, John Victor


Longden, Gilbert
Ridsdale, J. E.
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Rippon, A. G. F.



Lucas, P. B. (Brantford &amp; Chiswick)
Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Robertson, Sir David
Mr. Barber and


Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)

Mr. Hughes-Young.




NOES


Ainsley, J. W.
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson


Albu, A. H.
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
McInnes, J.


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Gibson, C. W.
McKay, John (Wallsend)


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
McLeavy, Frank


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Greenwood, Anthony
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)


Bacon, Miss Alice
Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
Mann, Mrs. Jean


Benn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S. E.)
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Mason, Roy


Benson, G.
Griffiths, William (Exchange)
Mellish, R. J.


Beswick, F.
Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Messer, Sir F.


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Hamilton, W. W.
Mikardo, Ian


Blackburn, F.
Hannan, W.
Mitchison, G. R.


Blenkinsop, A.
Hastings, S.
Moody, A. S.


Boardman, H.
Hayman, F. H.
Morrison, Rt. Hn. Herbert (Lewis'm, S.)


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)
Moyle, A.


Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S. W.)
Herbison, Miss M.
Mulley, F. W.


Bowles, F. G.
Hobson, C. R.
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)


Boyd, T. C.
Holman, P.
Oliver, G. H.


Brockway, A. F.
Holmes, Horace
Oram, A. E.


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)
Owen, W. J.


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belger)
Howell, Denis (All Saints)
Palmer, A. M. F.


Burton, Miss F. E.
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Parker, J.


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Pearson, A.


Callaghan, L. J.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Peart, T. F.


Chapman, W. D.
Hunter, A. E.
Popplewell, E.


Chetwynd, G. R.
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)


Clunie, J.
Irving, S. (Dartford)
Randall, H. E.


Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Rankin, John


Cove, W. G.
Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.
Redhead, E. C.


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Jones, David (The Hartlepools)
Reid, William


Darling, George (Hillsborough)
Jones, Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
Kenyon, C.
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Royle, C.


de Freitas, Geoffrey
King, Dr. H. M.
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


Delargy, H. J.
Lawson, G. M.
Shurmer, P. L. E.


Dodds, N. N.
Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Donnelly, D. L.
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Skeffington, A. M.


Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)
Lewis, Arthur
Slater, J. (Sedgefield)


Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Lindgren, G. S.
Sorensen, R. W.


Fernyhough, E.
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.
Sparks, J. A.




Stewart, Michael (Fulham)
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.
Usborne, H. C.
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)
Warbey, W. N.
Williams, W. T. (Barons Court)


Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)
Weitzman, D.
Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.)


Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)
Zilliacus, K.


Taylor, John (West Lothian)
Wheeldon, W. E.



Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)
Wigg, George
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)
Wilkins, W. A.
Mr. Simmons and Mr. J. T. Price.

Mr. Nabarro: I beg to move, in page 1, line 21, to leave out
more than seventy-five million pounds (or",
Would it be for the convenience of the Committee if this Amendment and the next but one Amendment on the Notice Paper also in the names of my hon. Friends and myself, to line 21 to leave out "greater", were discussed together, Sir Charles?

The Chairman: Yes. The second one is really a drafting Amendment.

Mr. Shinwell: On a point of order. Would you indicate, Sir Charles, what is to happen to the second Amendment on the Notice Paper, in page 1, line 17, after "section", to insert:
made before the expiration of five years from the commencement of the Coal Industry Act, 1956"?

Mr. Nabarro: Obviously, it was out of order.

Mr. Shinwell: The hon. Member says it was out of order, but he has not yet become the Chairman of Ways and Means. May I know whether the second Amendment, to line 17, is in order or not?

The Chairman: The Committee has just voted for it.

Mr. Shinwell: I merely wished to ascertain whether we had, because the speeches to which I have just listened did not indicate that.

The Chairman: I am not surprised.

Mr. Nabarro: The effect of the Amendment I have moved would be to leave paragraph (b) of Clause 1 as follows:
shall not at any time in any financial year exceed by such sum as the Minister may by order specify for one year the highest aggregate amount so outstanding at any time during the immediately preceding financial year.
As the Bill was originally drawn, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power would only have been required to bring an affirmative Resolution to the House to secure annual sanction in respect of the capital investment

programme of the National Coal Board if it exceeded the sum of £75 million in the year concerned.
This Amendment, or the combination of the two Amendments to which I have referred, would require that an affirmative Resolution, which I presume would be exempted business, would be brought in annually, stipulating the amount of investment for the ensuing year by the Coal Board, irrespective of that amount. That would give the House an opportunity once a year to debate the capital investment programme of the Coal Board in respect of the ensuing year in isolation from the remaining fuel and power industries.
The reasons for this desirable development I gave during my speech earlier this afternoon on the preceding Amendment, and I do not intend to repeat any of the arguments in regard to the taxpayers' money that I then used.

Mr. Callaghan: The hon. Gentleman would not be in order if he did.

Mr. Nabarro: The hon. Member says that I should not be in order if I did. On the contrary, I should be precisely in order.
What my hon. Friends and myself seek in these Amendments is that there should be a positive, precise, objective and thorough survey year by year of the capital investment programme of the Board. My right hon. Friend's proposition for an annual White Paper setting out in some detail, I was glad to hear him say, the capital investment programme of the nationalised fuel and power industries, would hardly meet my point in this connection. A White Paper is not necessarily debatable. It may in certain circumstances be debatable. It is subject to Parliamentary time and the pressure of Parliamentary events. If these Amendments of mine were accepted, it would be obligatory that there should be a debate annually on the investment programme of the Board.
There is a great deal of difference between a well-intentioned assurance, as


given by my right hon. Friend this afternoon in regard to the White Paper and the fact that it should be debated annually, and the fact that we have it written into the Statute that there shall be an affirmative Resolution annually in order to scrutinise the investment of the Board.

Mr. Joseph Slater: Am I right in thinking that, by the Amendments of the hon. Member, there would be two debates within the year, one on the investment programme of the Coal Board and another when the Board's annual report and accounts are submitted to the House?

Mr. Nabarro: As the hon. Member, who has sat in the House for many more years than I have, will know, the three nationalised days, as they are called, are in the hands of the Opposition and it depends upon what subjects the Opposition decides to debate on those days. The Opposition may or may not decide to debate the affairs of the National Coal Board and its report and accounts, but if it did so decide the effect would be that, in conjunction with the carrying of my two Amendments, there would in that year be two debates, one in connection with the Board's investment programme and the second in connection with operational and many other aspects of the Board's activities.
I pass from the academic aspects to the challenge given by the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) during the debate on our preceding Amendment as to what is legitimate investment and what is illegitimate investment. There must be a great deal of difference on this issue. Let me state my position perfectly clearly. I would not limit the Coal Board by one penny piece in respect of legitimate investment. My definition of that term is "Investment that is directly conducive to the raising of more coal"—that is legitimate investment.
There is, however, very real public concern as to a great deal of fringe investment by the Coal Board which is not in any way related to colliery investment. I shall give three examples, all of which have been brought out in the national Press during the last few weeks and not one of which has been answered by either the Coal Board or by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power in the House. They are directly concerned with the consideration now before us as to whether we ought to have an annual

scrutiny, for if we had such an annual scrutiny it would, in protection of the National Coal Board in certain circumstances, enable the real and legitimate reasons to be given for certain capital expenditure.
On the other hand, it would allow members of the general public, who feel sorely aggrieved as to what is considered wasteful and extravagant expenditure by the Board, to raise through their respective Members of Parliament, be they Government Members or Opposition Members, the subject matter of their grievance.
The first of the three is a Midlands case, and it arises from the purchase by the Coal Board of an historic manor house called Mancetter Manor.

Mr. Hamilton: rose——

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Nabarro: Let me finish. This matter was first brought to my notice by a letter which appeared in the Birmingham Post. This is illustrative of public concern as to the price of coal and how the taxpayers' money is being spent. The letter said:
Is it surprising that the National Coal Board makes such a devastating loss when one reads (The Birmingham Post, 9th June), that Mancetter Manor, near Atherstone, 'acknowledged as one of the finest examples in the country of a half-timbered manor house', has been bought for the official home of the new general manager of the Warwickshire area of the West Midlands Coal Board.
May one ask who is going to pay for its upkeep? If the general manager, is his salary sufficient; or can he get assistance through expenses? If the N.C.B. is paying, that really amounts to the taxpayers.
One is always glad to know that old and historic houses are not going to fall into disrepair, but I think that in view of its recent financial record the N.C.B. should consider well before spending several more thousands of pounds. After all, we have Himley Hall as an example.
The publication of that letter——

Mr. J. C. George: Does my hon. Friend know the cost?

Mr. Nabarro: If my hon. Friend will be patient, I shall give the facts, which have been given to me by the Coal Board.
As a result of the publication of that letter, I received a large number of letters from all over the Midlands and other parts of the country inquiring whether this statement about the purchase of the manor house was correct. Thereupon, I


got into touch with the Chairman of the West Midlands Coal Board and asked him for the facts of the situation. He has given them to me quite frankly. He said that the house was purchased for £6,750. The conveyance was completed on 18th June, 1956. The gross rateable value is £105, and the area general manager of the Board is to live there rent free, rates free and with gardeners provided.

Mr. Callaghan: Just like the steel companies.

Mr. Nabarro: He also told me—[Interruption.] I am not complaining about this yet; hon. Members opposite can wait and see. The Chairman of the West Midlands Coal Board also said that the emoluments represented by the manager's living in the house rent free, rates free and with gardeners provided would be grossed up for Income Tax and Surtax purposes when the man's assessment was raised—a very proper recourse, I am sure.
What I want to know is this. How much of the vast sum annually which the House of Commons is proposing to grant to the Coal Board for capital investment is being spent in respect of colliery investment to increase the production of coal, and how much of it is being spent on this type of fringe activity which involves the buying of expensive houses? They must be expensive if the taxpayer has to pay for them. After all, although it may be a good thing to do, it may be a bad thing to do. There is an essential difference between the Coal Board and a private industrial concern.
If a private industrial concern decides to do something of this kind, it is accountable to its shareholders through the board of directors. The shareholders in this case are the entire nation. Surely, Members of Parliament ought to be in a position to scrutinise expenditure of this kind at frequent intervals, for I am not at all sure that my right hon. Friend would sanction expenditure of this type as being essential and conducive to the raising of more coal.

Mr. Palmer: How does the hon. Member expect the Coal Board to attract the technologists it needs unless it gives the same facilities as private industry?

Mr. Nabarro: I doubt very much whether it is necessary for the Board to buy an historic mansion for this purpose. If the hon. Members supports that kind of thing, surely he would agree that it is undesirable that the manager should live there free of rent, free of rates and with gardeners provided. Why should that man not be paid the appropriate salary for his position and then pay for those services, like any industrialist has to pay? This kind of thing may be a part of the Socialist patronage that made nationalisation and all its processes, but it is not part of the policy of the party on this side.
I pass to a second example, and this is in connection with the Board's day-to-day expenditure. Its relevance to the Amendment is the fact that the amount of money that the Board would have to borrow under the Bill is largely determined by the amount of money the Board will find from its own resources; and the more economically it conducts its day-to-day financial affairs and the more economical it is in its expenditure, the greater will be its surplus and the less the sum of money it will ultimately have to borrow.
Is expenditure of this kind justified by the Board? This is an advertisement which appeared in the St. Helens Reporter in May, 1956:
Wanted—Gardener at two dwelling houses, Rainhill district. Wages £7 2s. per week of 44 hours. Applications, stating age, experience and present appointment should be forwarded to: Area Secretary, National Coal Board, No. 3 (St. Helens) Area, Haydock, St. Helens, not later than 2nd June, 1956.
I was immediately flooded with letters from that part of the country inquiring, as there is no Conservative Member for miles around St. Helens—[An HON. MEMBER: "There is no Member at all."]—whether expenditure of this kind was necessary. It is to this sort of thing that my right hon. Friend should really give attention in connection with the problem of accountability.
How are aggrieved taxpayers and domestic coal consumers to ventilate this sort of grievance if there is no scrutiny of the accounts and affairs of the Board? A woman writes to me:
It is unfair that we the public should pay for this in increased prices of coal and also the high subsidies which are paid on miners' houses by the National Coal Board to the corporations.

Mr. Herbert Butler: Why?

Mr. Nabarro: Obviously, the hon. Member believes that the primary purpose of the Coal Board is to rear geraniums. There is a good deal of difference, in my view, between the horticultural pursuits supported by the hon. Member and the true function of the Board, for which we are asked to support this Bill, which is to raise more coal. That is why I am raising Cain about these things.
I ask my right hon. Friend not only to give us an assurance that historic manor houses should not be bought at such regular intervals for the Coal Board out of the taxpayers' money, but also that the people who live in them shall not be provided with gardeners at the taxpayers' expense or at the cost of increased prices of household coal.

Mr. Percy Shurmer: Will the hon. Member be so virile in his protests when complaints are made about soldiers on National Service working as gardeners for Army colonels and generals?

Mr. Iorwerth Thomas: The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has repeatedly asked why the taxpayer should be expected to pay for these things. How does the taxpayer come into payment for these manor houses art all? Could the hon. Member tell us how the taxpayer bears this expense?

Mr. Nabarro: The point raised by the hon. Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Shurmer) would be more appropriate to the debate on the Army Estimates, next March.
As to the second point, made by the hon. Member for Rhondda, West (Mr. Iorwerth Thomas), if he will refer to the Financial Statement accompanying the Budget last April he will see clearly that the finances of the Coal Board are very substantially below-the-line expenditure which means, in my interpretation, that they are in large measure provided for directly out of the proceeds of direct and indirect taxation.
Here is another allegation of wasteful expenditure by the Coal Board, but one which, I think, has resulted in unfair criticism of the Board and should have been defended adequately by the Board in the

national newspapers or by the Minister of Fuel and Power in the House of Commons. Neither has happened. This passage appeared in the Sunday Express.

Mr. Callaghan: Have we got to go through all that?

Mr. Nabarro: Yes. [HON. MEMBERS: "Cross Bencher."] No, it was John Gordon who, on 3rd June, 1956, used these words:
From smiles to tears. Why does coal cost so much? Well, here is one little thing that helped.
The Coal Board built a new drift mine at Seneley Green, near St. Helens. It was the last word in modernity. The entrance was finished in expensive rustic brickwork. The tunnel, arched and concreted, a thing of beauty.
'You'll get no coal there', warned the old hands in the district. But the Coal Board experts laughed them off. After eighteen months' work, when about £250,000 had been spent, the mine was closed, the site cleared, the soil replaced. Not one bucket of coal had been taken from it.
I got into touch with Mr. James Bowman immediately about these allegations, and asked for the true story. It emerged that after the great freeze-up in 1947—I am glad that the right hon. Member for Easington, appears to be making an appropriate note—the Board set on foot the opening of a number of drift mines in Lancashire. In this area of St. Helens there were nine drift mines, of which eight proved entirely successful and highly productive. One mine, the Seneley Green drift mine, due to circumstances that could not have been envisaged at the time the construction was commenced, proved almost a complete failure. Only 2,000 tons of saleable coal could be extracted from it. In fact, £250,000 was not spent on it as alleged by Mr. John Gordon. Only £114,000 was spent on it. After the machinery that was put into the drift mine was removed and used elsewhere, the final loss was £80,000 and not £250,000.

Mr. Albert Roberts: Why the final loss?

Mr. Nabarro: I am coming to that. Evidently anybody is in a position to hurl brickbats at the Coal Board—[An HON. MEMBER: "One who knows."]—about wasteful expenditure, but here is a case where a very reasonable commercial risk was taken by the Board.


It succeeded in eight cases out of nine. It fell down only on the ninth case. Mr. James Bowman, rightly, wrote to the Sunday Express and gave it the facts of the situation, but the Sunday Express never published the facts. They have not been published to this day. [An HON. MEMBER: "Nor will they be now."] Probably they will not be published now.
All this is in support of what I consider to be a very reasonable argument. How can these facts be brought to light unless there is reasonable Parliamentary accountability for this vast expenditure by the Coal Board? There ought to have been the opportunity for an hon. Member to raise the question of the Seneley Green drift mine expenditure. Whether or not it was wasteful, there ought to have been an opportunity for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power to have replied to allegations of wasteful expenditure and to have defended the position of the Coal Board. In fact, we have no such opportunity.
7.0 p.m.
If these two Amendments were accepted by the Committee the effect would be an annual scrutiny by means of an affirmative Resolution. We would then be able to raise every matter of the kind I have been relating, whether it is the extravagance of Mancetter Manor in the Midlands, whether it is extravagant expenditure on historic houses, whether it is a question of employing gardeners to look after Coal Board premises which ought to be paid for by the occupant and not by the Board, whether it is a question of investment in the Seneley Green drift mine, or ventures of that kind. They would all come within the purview of the annual accountability for capital development. That was my purpose in bringing forward these two Amendments.
I hope that what I have said this afternoon will commend itself to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Easington in recognising how unbiased and impartial I am in these matters. For I have quoted two examples of expenditure which are highly critical of the Board and I have quoted a further example in defence of its activities.
I seek to support very form of capital investment required up to the maximum

by the Coal Board for the legitimate purpose of increasing coal production. I deprecate every kind of capital investment of the type to which I have alluded this afternoon in the form of fringe activities which are not conducive to the raising of more coal. I hope that the right hon. Member for Easington will defend the purchase of historic manor houses at the expense of the taxpayer, so that we may know of the gross failure of the policy he advocated in nationalising the pits in 1947.

Mr. Shinwell: When the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) began his speech, Sir Rhys, I expected, as no doubt did other hon. Members, that we were to hear a series of astounding revelations about illegitimate and injudicious expenditure by the National Coal Board. Instead, after an amazing display of energy, and almost unprecedented research into diverse channels, the hon. Gentleman produced a mouse of infinitesimal proportions.
I thought that perhaps the hon. Gentleman had heard de novo, sotto voce, on the quiet, on the nod, in a subterranean fashion, that the Coal Board, or perhaps some of the area boards, had expended millions of £s which were now lost to the nation. But not a word of that. So the bluff has at last been called. After all the criticism and the hostility, after all the speeches made by the hon. Gentleman and by some of his hon. Friends, and by some of the enemies of nationalisation outside, all we have heard is that two incidents have occurred. One was the purchase of a manor house at a fabulous cost of £6,670. The other was the employment—or, at any rate, the intended employment—of two gardeners.
While the hon. Gentleman was speaking I saw on the opposite bench the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster). I am sorry that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has gone, but he may have good reason for leaving the Committee. [An HON. MEMBER: "He has gone to apply for a job."] Without going into precise details, I advise the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kidderminster to have a conversation with his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Fylde, who was at one time the general manager of a large colliery undertaking under private ownership.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman will be able to inform the hon. Member for Kidderminster, if he is interested in the matter—really and fundamentally interested, without the trimmings and the embroidery in which he indulges—that it was a common practice during the private ownership régime for a long time not only to provide free houses and free rent and all the additional comforts—[An HON. MEMBER: "Free milk from the cows."]—at considerable expense, but also to provide gardeners and workmen who were frequently taken from the collieries to furnish the general managers, sometimes the under-managers, and even the directors of the company, with the amenities they desired.
I suppose that the hon. Gentleman might respond by saying that this was during the period of private ownership and that the taxpayer was not called upon to pay. There is, however, not a vast difference between the coal consumer and the taxpayer, nor is there much to distinguish—when it comes to inflicting a hardship either on the taxpayer or on the consumer—as between the taxpayer and the consumer and inflicting hardship on the coal miner who, during the period of private ownership, as a result of providing these rich emoluments to those at the top, had himself to suffer a great deal of impoverishment.
There is something more of which probably the hon. Gentleman is not aware. When we nationalised the coal mining industry we had to consider the position of those in the privately owned industry. For example, the miners came with their miners' charter and asked us to agree to concessions, some of which were agreeable to us and subsequently agreeable to them. But they were not alone in asking for concessions. I recall meetings with the Colliery Managers' Association. I recall the negotiations and the excessive demands they made, which, no doubt, were reasonable from their standpoint.
I recall, also, that we had to agree to arbitration to determine the rate of interest to be paid to those who were the previous owners of the mining industry. A vast sum of money had to be paid to them. [An HON. MEMBER: "Far too much."] That was not all. I recall that we had to continue the contracts which had been entered into during the period

of private ownership, many of which are now in operation, and I suspect that there are hon. Members on the other side who are still receiving emoluments on a large scale which are attributable exclusively to the fact that we had to continue contracts previously entered into.
There is nothing original in anything that the hon. Gentleman has said about free houses or about the provision of gardeners. I do not want to excuse the Coal Board, or any of the area boards if they indulge in excessive expenditure in providing any of their employees, high or low, with accommodation or with amenities, because they have to be exceedingly careful and we must have regard to public opinion——

Mr. Nabarro: Hear, hear. My speech was about that.

Mr. Shinwell: But we ought not to get excited when we learn that an historic manor house is now to be used by an industrial undertaking which is under the protection of the State. Far better that these houses should be occupied by people who are expected to do a good day's work instead of their being occupied by a decadent aristocracy.

Mr. Nabarro: The whole purpose of my quoting a couple of cases of this kind was that we wish public opinion to be informed about these matters. Allegations have been made, for instance, in a Sunday newspaper. In the People, last Sunday, there was a leading article about this manor house in the Midlands, and it was very critical of the Coal Board. I want public opinion to be informed, either by the Board or through this House, as to whether that type of expenditure is considered desirable.

Mr. Shinwell: In a previous debate—it will be within the recollection of some hon. Members who were present, although the Committee was not well-attended at the time—I said that I thought that we ought to be furnished with more information than is now available.

Mr. Nabarro: Come over here.

Mr. Shinwell: I might impart some tone to the other side, but that is not my intention at present, nor do I think that it is likely to be in the future.
Let me reply to the hon. Member for Kidderminster in this way. If he is really anxious that discussion should be promoted on the transactions of the national coal industry, I make this suggestion to his right hon. Friend, who, after all, is the person in authority. Do not bother about an affirmative Resolution, such as the hon. Member demands, or a negative Resolution—let the right hon. Gentleman, on behalf of the Government, provide time, not on a Supply day, not Opposition time, but in a positive fashion provide time when he thinks that it is opportune to place facts before the House that ought to be available to hon. Members—[Interruption.] I know that the hon. Member for Kidderminster is very foolish as well as strident but, really, he ought not to be insane, or rather, I should say, infantile, because I must not say "insane". I am surprised at the hon. Member being so foolish as that. I was Minister of Fuel and Power for 18 months and when I come to think——

The Deputy-Chairman: It would facilitate the working of the Committee if there were fewer interruptions.

Mr. Shinwell: When I come to think of it, there were great difficulties at the time, as every reasonable hon. Member knows, but I do not think that any of my successors have achieved any great success. We still talk about a coal crisis. A coal crisis has been going on all the time, so I should not be unduly castigated for what occurred. But never mind, one expects that in political life. We are here to give hard knocks and we take them, so I am not worried about that.
I repeat that if a debate is required, let positive action be taken by the Government. No one on this side will object. We welcome debate, but we object to any discussion on the Floor of the House about matters which are the primary concern of the unions on the one hand and the Coal Board on the other—I mean industrial matters, wages and conditions. Is it not a remarkable thing that the hon. Member for Kidderminster is so anxious to have a debate on these trifling matters, or even on matters which are perhaps more important, but he has not said a word about the need for having a debate on the welfare conditions of the mineworkers. He has not said a word about

the need for more housing accommodation for miners.

The Deputy-Chairman: This appears to be widening the debate a good deal.

Mr. Shinwell: I was merely pointing out that while the hon. Member asked that we should have discussions on one subject, he did not ask for debates on another subject, which I regard as equally, if not more important.
I now come to the hon. Member's piéce de résistance, to his denouement about the drift mines. He was so generous, so magnanimous. He even admitted that the Coal Board had been unjustly criticised. What was it about? It proceeded to develop the drift mine. Although I have no technical experience, I have been long associated with the industry in public life and I know something about the drift mining problem. In this country, drift mining has never been easy. It has been attempted over and over again. Often it has proved successful but many times it has proved very expensive, and often it has not produced a great deal of coal. What has happened?
The hon. Member himself said that out of nine cases the Board succeeded in eight.

7.15 p.m.

Mr. Nabarro: I praised the Board.

Mr. Shinwell: That is a great achievement, due very largely to the technical policy of the people responsible for production, but they failed to succeed in one, and there was a loss of £250,000 or something like that. When we reflect on the fact that in privately owned industry—I recognise that there are reasons for this; I merely state the fact—hundreds of millions have been lost that has had a harsh impact on the taxpayer and the consumer. There is no escape from that. When I reflect upon that, we ought not to cavil at what is being done by the Coal Board.
I should like to take up the point about providing rent-free houses. There, the hon. Member is treading on very delicate ground. I wonder how many businessmen—I will not say "in this House" because we are all honourable men—who are acquaintances of hon. Members opposite, and perhaps of some hon. Members on this side, have been provided with flats in Park Lane, houses in the country,


limousines and the like out of what is called the business account, to say nothing about trips abroad ad lib. There may be reasons for that and I am the last man in the world to object to anyone who does a good job of work receiving emoluments. I think that that is inevitable under our present system; but, all the same, I think that hon. Members opposite should take the beam out of their own capitalist eye before directing attention to the mote in the eye of the National Coal Board.
What is the reason for all this hullabaloo on the part of the hon. Member for Kidderminster and his hon. Friends who are associated with him? There is the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams), with his extensive experience of public life and the coal mining industry. I advise this young hon. Member to be very careful about the company he keeps. Then we have the hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth, West (Brigadier Clarke) who, by the way, at one time, to the best of my knowledge, when I was Secretary of State for War occupied premises at public expense, as do we all. It is at the taxpayers' expense. Let hon. Members make no mistake about that. I suggest that an hon. Member opposite should one day demand of the Prime Minister that we have a debate, promoted by the Government, on expenditure directed at maintaining a very large number of people in conditions of comfort at the taxpayers' expense. What a revelation that would be.
Therefore, I come to the conclusion that this hullabaloo on the part of the hon. Member and his associates—I almost said "accomplices"—is entirely due to the fact that they really dislike nationalisation. They cannot get it out of their hearts and minds. The last thing in the world they want is to see nationalisation achieving success; that would break their hearts.
In spite of it all, the Minister has given way to them. He has sold the pass. He is a little afraid of them. We had that fine, solid robust appearance at the Dispatch Box and those clipped sentences, all very fine and large, putting his hon. Friends in their place, and now he succumbs to blandishments. Perhaps they are not the blandishments of hon. Members on the back benches opposite. Perhaps they are the blandishments of his colleagues in the Government, who have

no doubt said to him, "You had better be careful. You had better be tactful." I can almost imagine the conversation. I am not so sure I myself have not heard it, for I am familiar with these matters. At all events, he has given way—this robust Minister of Fuel and Power, denounced and damned by the sergeant-major opposite.

Mr. Dudley Williams: I am glad of the opportunity to intervene for a few moments, because I want to voice my disagreement with the Amendments which have been put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro).
My hon. Friend is standing away from the basic policy in the Conservative Party. As a Conservative, I believe it is impossible for the House of Commons to direct and control industry. His Amendments seek to bring such control ever closer, and I am opposed to them for that reason.
When the Labour Party nationalised the coal industry, it held the same view. It specifically laid down in the nationalisation Measure that the day-to-day management of the industry was not to be the affair of Parliament. If one accepts that fact, there are only two courses which can be followed by Parliament or by the Minister directing the activities of the National Coal Board. One can either say that there is a case for denationalising the industry and returning it to private enterprise, or one must try to create conditions so that the nationalised industry can be run as nearly as possible under the conditions which apply in privately-owned industry.
I expect that in this view I am to some extent in agreement with the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell). I think it is fair to say that denationalisation does not commend itself to either side of the House. However, I was interested to note, in a newspaper this morning, that the National Union of Mineworkers is taking an increasing interest in the profits of private industry and investing within that orbit and moving away from investment in Government funds.
Therefore, we can follow only the second course. We must try to create conditions in which the Board can operate like a privately-owned concern. At all costs, we must avoid control by


the House of Commons. Yet my hon. Friend's Amendment seeks to bring such control nearer.
My hon. Friends who support the Amendment apparently desire every year to examine the capital projects of the Board. Presumably, in the course of the debate on any Instrument which is laid before the House with this object in view, they will examine such projects, criticise them and possibly amend them, and the Board will then be told to proceed with the programme finally agreed by the House. I do not know what will happen if the Board carries out its programme more rapidly than it expected and runs out of money before the year is up. Presumably it would have to come back to the House for further approval and for another £10 or £15 million. If it used more contractors or more capacity was available and its progress was still more rapid, presumably it would have to come back to the House a third time.
Such a practice would be impossible. We could not for a moment expect any industrial undertaking to endure such uncertainty and carry out its task efficiently. For instance, the Board could enter into no long-term contracts. It could not tell contractors engaged in sinking a new pit, "This is a five-year job". Indeed, it is sometimes a 10-year job to complete a pit. At all events, the Board could not tell the contractors that it was a long-term job and that it must move in its executives and men and obtain housing for them, in the way in which the right hon. Member for Easington referred to houses bought by the Board, because it would have no certainty.
Every year there would be an appeal to the House and the programme would be laid before the House. The Board would say to itself, "For all we know, the House of Commons may say that this year we cannot carry on with the pit. We can continue with two in Durham and one in South Wales, but not the one in the East Midlands". It would be impossible. I do not think that any industry could operate under such conditions.
I wish to draw the attention of the Committee to a further point. There are already enough difficulties in getting

suitable executives for the various nationalised industries. One of the fundamental difficulties of all the nationalised industries is that many people are not prepared to work in them. We have all been guilty from time to time—I have—of criticising the operations of nationalised industries. It is one of the drawbacks of ever nationalising an industry. I hope that there will not be an extension of the practice for this reason alone.
We shall never get people into an important industry like the coal industry if they are constantly looking over their shoulders and wondering what is going to happen in the House of Commons, how they will be criticised, etc. Any proposals such as the one in the Amendment would lead to still more problems in obtaining suitable men to accept executive appointments.

Mr. Maude: I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) is taking some time in following a false scent. In the first place, it would not be possible for the House, on an affirmative Resolution, to amend the capital programme in respect of individual Orders. Secondly, precisely the same thing happens under the Bill as drafted. The Minister has said there will be an Order in three or four years out of five. The Amendment seeks to extend that to five years out of five. That is all.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Williams: If my hon. Friend will wait for a moment he will find that I am coming to the point which he mentioned about the difference between the proposals made by the Minister and those made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster.
My next point is that under the Bill we agree with this programme in toto. If there is to be a Resolution, as is suggested by the Amendment, there will be no agreement to the overall amount but an individual figure will be agreed each year the total figure is meaningless. I am therefore convinced that the Amendments will make a mockery of all long-term planning by the National Coal Board. I do not see how it will be competent for the National Coal Board to carry out its task if it is to be under such strict supervision by the House of Commons.
There has not been sufficient investment in the coal mining industry for a number of years. If new pits are to be sunk to take the place of the old which in many cases are uneconomic, a considerable amount of money will have to be spent. I am confident that the programme put forward by the National Coal Board is a real estimate which in the end will lead to sufficient quantities of fuel, having regard to the imports of oil that we contemplate and to the assistance which we hope to get from nuclear fission.
As I see it, by the time the Bill is passed, the House will have had to decide whether the present proposals are correct. If they are, we must create conditions in which the National Coal Board can do its job. We must have confidence that the Minister of Fuel and Power will see that the schemes are put over. It will be impossible to expect him to give the right impetus to the Coal Board if the Amendments are accepted.

Mr. Grimond: I have considerable sympathy with the general approach to this problem expressed by the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams), but perhaps he underestimates the right of the House of Commons to follow the money which it has voted and to discuss the use to which it is being put. I do not think it is an easy task, but if Parliament wants to call for a progress report from time to time it is entitled to it, because that is properly safeguarding public money.
I agree with the hon. Member for Exeter that the House of Commons cannot always be chopping and changing the detailed plans of the National Coal Board. That is out of the question. I dealt with that on a previous Amendment. Our general position should be that we have appointed the Coal Board and have supplied it with money. It must get on with the job, but we have a right to a report from time to time on how it is doing.

Mr. Slater: Does not the House of Commons get that information now?

Mr. Grimond: Perhaps I should have added that we also have a right and duty to discuss it. If there is not sufficient time I have no objection to further time being given. But when the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) gives examples of the sort of points which he

thinks should be taken up in the discussion, then I part company with him. I cannot see that the debate on an annual Resolution by which we vote money for capital expenditure to the Coal Board should be the occasion to discuss detailed points of the kind he mentioned.

Mr. William Shepherd: Can the hon. Member visualise a state of affairs in which the House of Commons would be competent to discuss an expenditure of £100 million and how it is being spent?

Mr. Grimond: I have dealt with that point. My own view is that it will not be possible to do more than express a general opinion. Nevertheless, the House of Commons has an obligation to follow how public money is to be spent, and if there is not sufficient time to discuss the affairs of the Coal Board I am willing that more time should be allowed.

Mr. Nabarro: How does the hon. Member suggest that grievances should be redressed and that the general public, who are fed up to the teeth with seeing extravagance all round in the Coal Board, should be able to ventilate its point of view?

Mr. Grimond: It is difficult for one to make a speech when all the points that one hoped to make are constantly made in advance by interruptions. I agree that it is proper for the public to want to know whether the Coal Board is behaving itself, in spending too much money on manor houses, or appointing too many gardeners. We have a right to inquire, and to raise the matter on a Supply day or by Question and Answer in the House of Commons. There are various ways by which it might be done.
But I cannot believe that it is proper to devote time allotted ostensibly for a serious review of the success of the investment policy of the Coal Board to endless airing of miscellaneous grievances; for example, people who may write in from St. Helens complaining about dogs falling down pits, or pit ponies being ill-treated. I cannot think that is the right way to use the occasion provided by an affirmative Resolution.

Mr. Richard Fort: Does not the hon. Member agree that that is exactly what we do on the Post Office Vote which, in large measure, is a highly technical department?

Mr. Grimond: Yes, which makes it all the worse.
The problem is to find a sensible method of examining the affairs, not only of the Coal Board, but of the Post Office. That is the difficulty that we have to meet. I do not believe that we always want a debate which turns into party points for or against nationalisation, and endless accusations that the hon. Member for Kidderminster is anti-nationalisation. We want a much more technical debate about how the programme of the Department is going. I cannot see that this will be achieved by a late-night wrangle of the type we have had today.

Mr. Nabarro: What about an all-day wrangle?

Mr. Grimond: Or by an all-day wrangle on questions like gardeners. Later tonight we are perhaps to discuss the creation of a Select Committee to watch over the accounts and programmes of the nationalised industries. It would be out of order to discuss this matter now. But that Committee might be a most suitable place for calm discussion of the capital investment programme. What is wanted is not that we should use time which should be devoted to the capital investment programme of the Coal Board for the discussion of such other matters and grievances. We should discuss the general programme, and review the Board's operations, with as much technical assistance as we can get.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) commended the Amendment on the ground that it would compel a debate on coal investment every year. That is true. In a sense, that might be represented as an advantage as against the procedure for Parliamentary scrutiny which I outlined at the beginning of the afternoon, but whatever advantages may follow on a particular course we find that most courses have disadvantages attendant on them.
The disadvantages attendant on the Amendment were in no way described by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) posed the problem extremely well. Here is the House of Commons making capital finance available for the

nationalised industries. It is right and proper that it should exercise control or scrutiny over the way in which that finance is used. Everything really depends upon the type of scrutiny. The first thing I would say is that any scrutiny can only be most broad. Scrutiny, in the detailed sense described by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster, would be not only purposeless but quite unsuitable for this Chamber.
Beyond that, the course which my hon. Friend recommended runs into the disadvantage which I described earlier; it would condemn, as my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter well described it, the long-term investment programme to uncertainty. Here is the Coal Board with a 10-year plan. For five of those 10 years it expects to need finance from me for the accomplishment of the plan. How can it possibly proceed with the plan if it does not know from one year to the next whether or not it will get the requisite capital advanced? There is, therefore, uncertainty.
I would concede at once to my hon. Friend that Government Departments embark on long-term plans but are, nevertheless, subjected to annual supply. That is true, but Government Departments are one thing, and nationalised undertakings are a different thing. The Government Department knows that the Government stand solidly behind it. Even when Governments change in political colour it is part of the tradition of this country that schemes already embarked on by the preceding Government are continued and completed by the following Government. That is not so with the nationalised undertakings. The nationalised undertaking is not part of the Government. It stands aside from the Government, apart from the Government, whilst looking to the Government for capital finance.
Surely the whole trend of our debates on this Bill shows that we have not yet reached a bi-partisan policy on the nationalised industries. While party passions still rage on the subject of nationalised undertakings I should have thought that no nationalised undertaking under this procedure could count on finance being available. The plan, which it is essential for our economy should be accomplished would, therefore, be rendered uncertain.
There is also a more fundamental objection to the Amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster. Nationalised undertakings are, I grant, rather anomalous creatures. They are hybrids, neither private businesses nor Government Departments. The pressures expressed in the debates this afternoon are to make of them more and more Government Departments. The Amendment proposed by my hon. Friend would assimilate the procedure of capital advances for nationalised undertakings to the procedure for Government Departments. Are we sure that we really ought to make Government Departments of them? Is there a technical case for making of them Government Departments? I do not think so. There are these differences, that the grants made to Government Departments by way of annual Estimates are grants and in the case of a nationalised undertaking we are talking of loans, not grants.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster said that this capital finance came from taxpayers' money. My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary, in winding up the Second Reading debate on this Bill, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the debate on Clause 34 of the Finance Bill, went to great pains to point out that that was not in fact so. Far be it from me to trespass on the province of the Chancellor, which is beyond my Departmental competence. I merely say that the connection between taxation and capital expenditure appearing below the line in the financial statement is most indirect, it is not direct at all. I do not, therefore, think that on that ground there is a case for treating the nationalised undertakings like Government Departments.
There is also this consideration. My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster is much concerned about what he feels to be the inefficiency of nationalised undertakings.

Mr. Nabarro: Certain inefficiency.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. Jones: We are all for raising efficiency; there is no quarrel about that. If we can raise efficiency, and only if we can raise efficiency, can we see wages increasing without corresponding increases in prices. Are we sure that by multiplying the scrutiny procedures of this House

we shall, in fact, be improving the efficiency of the nationalised undertakings? I question it.
In the last resort, these undertakings are efficient or not according to whether or not they are led by people of talent and character and people who are prepared to display initiative. My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster himself voiced thoughts similar to this in the course of the Second Reading debate. My hon. Friend said:
What I am saying is that if we are to get value for the money from this Bill there must surely be an end to appointing retired generals and creating trade union sinecures in these immensely important posts. I would not appoint any more Lord Citrines or James Bowmans. I believe that it is most important that men with long technological, commercial and industrial experience outside the trade union field should be imported to these managerial posts."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th May, 1956; Vol. 552, c. 1472–3.]
I do think it is important to be able to attract business talent to the nationalised undertakings——

Mr. Nabarro: I quite agree.

Mr. Jones: Indeed, I think that it is probably the most formidable problem with which they are confronted, but I put it to my hon. Friend, what businessmen and what board of directors in private industry embark on a long-term investment plan and go back cap in hand to the shareholders every year for the requisite capital advances?

Mr. Nabarro: Would my right hon. Friend permit me to ask one question? It is inherent in the Bill as he has drafted it that he comes back to this House for what he is now deprecating on every occasion when the capital investment exceeds £75 million in the year. He has said already that it is going to exceed £75 million in the first year, in the second year and in the third year. A short time ago my hon. Friend indicated that he accepts scrutiny for the fifth year. Therefore, by accepting this Amendment he would be sealing the gap in the fourth year. Why does he deprecate the principle which I so wisely advocate?

Mr. Jones: Surely there is here a most important difference. The whole question of Parliamentary accountability bristles with difficulties. To come to this House for permission, in a year of extraordinarily heavy expenditure, to exceed


a certain limit is one thing, but to come to it not knowing whether it is certain of any finance at all is entirely different. I suggest to my hon. Friend that the best thing he can do for the nationalised industries is to create conditions attractive to men of talent and character, to men with business experience——

Mr. Nabarro: I said so.

Mr. Jones: Yes, my hon. Friend said so on Second Reading, but I put it to him most seriously that this Amendment is in contradiction of that end.
While I think it right that the House should exercise scrutiny in a broad way over the capital finances it makes available to these industries, I suggest to the Committee that the way I recommended earlier this afternoon is better than the way enshrined in these Amendments and that these Amendments would expose us to two disadvantages. That way would subject a long-term investment plan to the greatest uncertainty and would be contrary to the purpose which we ought to pursue with patience and restraint—to make these industries attractive to men of business talent. On those grounds, I hope that my hon. Friend will not press the Amendment.

Mr. Harold Neal: I intervene only briefly to express my surprise that the Minister should complain about the appearance of the Amendment on the Notice Paper. Its appearance is a direct result of the Minister's appeasement; he has conceded that the capital expenditure of the Coal Board shall be reviewed every five years, and, not satisfied with that concession, the rebels in his party have asked for an annual review.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has left the Chamber, because I wanted to refer to some of the flimsy arguments which he adduced in favour of the Amendment. It is surprising that this Amendment, which clearly seeks to ensure an annual review of capital expenditure, should have been supported by him by futile arguments about the houses of Coal Board officials and the purchase of Hindley Hall as divisional offices for the Coal Board. Such expenditure is only a drop in the bucket of the Coal Board's annual expenditure and does not affect by one farthing a ton the coal we produce in this country. If

Mr. Bowman and his colleagues had no more worries than the expenditure of which the hon. Member complains, we should be in a happy state of affairs in the coal industry.
This question of officials' houses was disposed of as long ago as the days when Lord Hindley was Chairman of the Coal Board. When the criticisms arose in those days he asked a question which I will put to the hon. Member for Kidderminster and his colleagues who support the Amendment and who oppose the purchase of houses, such as those mentioned by the hon. Member and also mentioned in the Press at the week-end: are such facilities disproportionate with what private industry offers to its officials of the same salary and the same standing? I am sure that they are not. Arguments of this nature will influence nobody, I am sure, in favour of an annual review if it is simply to inquire who lives in which house and how much money he gets.
The Amendment is a perfect example of appeasement. If, instead of spending his time in self-commiseration, the Minister were to stand up to the rebels in his party, he would be much more likely to be a successful Minister than he appears to be at present. He sees where his weakness has led him in conceding the five-year review. He sees where it might lead him were it not for the protection of the Government majority.
To those who have practical experience in the industry, it is laughable that this concession of an annual review should be desired because, as everybody with practical experience in the mining industry knows, the reorganisation schemes and the development plans of the Coal Board extend over more than one year. It is fantastic to expect that a Committee, or even the House, would be able to examine the schemes pit by pit to see each year what had been done and how much ought to be done.
The hon. and gallant Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster) is perhaps the only one among the signatories to the Amendment who has practical experience of the mining industry, and he knows that reorganisation schemes often last for much more than 12 months. He began to sink what is perhaps the best and the best-constructed mine in this country—Calverton—but he did not sink it in one year.

Mr. Shepherd: Is it not a fact that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster) has not put his name to the Amendment?

Mr. Neal: I think his name is Colonel Lancaster, and it is on the Notice Paper.

Mr. Geoffrey Hirst: We are not discussing that Amendment.

Mr. Neal: If the hon. and gallant Member for South Fylde has not added his name to the Amendment which we are discussing, I unhesitatingly withdraw what I said, and I am sure he will understand that withdrawal.
I want to ask those who demand an annual review of the capital expenditure in the coal industry what would happen to the unfinished schemes if the capital expenditure were reduced? One cannot stop and start schemes in the mining industry as one stops and starts a motor car. One cannot suspend the fight with Nature, wait for a few years, resume it and expect the conditions to be the same as when one left off. In sinking a new shaft it takes more than five years—sometimes, as the Minister knows full well, seven to 10 years—before peak production is reached. Nearly all the reorganisation schemes listed by the Coal Board in their recent publication took more than two years to complete. If we are to have an annual review, what would happen to those schemes if by a fluke of the Committee inquiring into the matter, or some peculiarity of the debate in the House, there were a reduction in the capital expenditure and those schemes were upset?
If we are asking for confusion and chaos in the coal industry, by all means let us impose this uncertainty, but the Committee must realise that the mining engineer must be assured of a reasonable measure of continuity in expenditure in order that he may have a reasonable chance for his development plans to succeed. If he cannot have that, and if the Amendment is carried, I fear that the result will be almost disastrous in the industry within the next 12 months, if not earlier. I hope that the Committee will join the Minister in rejecting the Amendment.

Miss Margaret Herbison: I am very pleased indeed that

the Minister has taken the line on the Amendment which he has just outlined, but I join with my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Neal) in saying that the Amendment is on the Notice Paper because he has given way to the pressure of his own back benchers and because he introduced the first Amendment which we discussed today.
It is clear that no hon. Member opposite who has any knowledge of the coal industry has added his name to the Amendment. I understood that the hon. Member for Pollok (Mr. George) intended to speak on the subject, but I gather that pressure from the Whips has led him to decide that he should not speak. I am sorry about that, because he has long experience in the mining industry in Scotland and he could have told the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) many home-truths.
In introducing the Amendment, the hon. Member for Kidderminster said that it would give us a debate on coal investment each year. If anyone opposite had been tempted to support the Amendment before it was moved, I am sure he must have changed his mind by the time the hon. Member for Kidderminster sat down. If we were to have an annual review, a day's debate, simply to discuss the niggling things which the hon. Member for Kidderminster raised in his speech, I am very glad that his Amendment will evidently get little support.
In a previous discussion one of my hon. Friends referred to the hon. Member, by a slip of the tongue, as the "kid Minister". We on this side are very sorry indeed that the hon. Member and some of his hon. Friends have kidded the Minister so far that he has given way to them and is piling up difficulties for the National Coal Board. The hon. Member for Kidderminster, whose mind on these matters is almost like a sewer and who has a fantastic desire continually to denigrate the nationalised industries, particularly the coal industry, could find only two cases, despite all his hunting in the country, with which to support the Amendment. I wish that the hon. Member had had a talk with the hon. Member for Pollok, who could have told him from his own experience of the "perks" there were for those in management when the coal industry was in the hands of private owners.
8.0 p.m.
There is this talk about a manor house being bought for over £6,000. I would invite the hon. Member for Kidderminster to come to my constituency, to my own village. There, he would see that the only houses of any decent size were those provided by the old coal owners for the management. Those houses were provided side by side with the most shocking miners' rows for the men who were producing the coal. I am glad that almost all of those miners' rows have disappeared.
I am sure that even hon. Members on this side would be shocked to know that while there were for the management these bigger houses—one could almost call them the manor houses of which the hon. Member for Kidderminster complained—there were alongside them single-roomed houses for the miners. There was not a kitchenette—nothing but a single room. What we are faced with today is very often a heritage from those bad old days of private ownership.
There was the mention of advertising for two gardeners. My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) dealt with that in an excellent manner. Many of these things which the Coal Board has to carry today are the result of agreements made by the private owners. Those agreements the Board has had to carry on. I hope that when new agreements are made the Coal Board will not carry on the appointments of gardeners.
I am very close to the mining industry. Living among miners as I do, and coming from a mining home, knowing of the criticism in the old days of the miners against the provision of gardeners and all sorts of people for these folks, I am hoping that when these agreements run out the Coal Board will not enter into similar ones. But it comes ill from the hon. Member for Kidderminster to make such statements when the party which he represents in this House is the party that made these things possible in the first instance.
The hon. Member talked also about subsidised houses. I wonder whether he was referring only to this type of house or to other subsidised houses for miners? I find—and I had a letter about it only this week—that the Coal Board is taking over 300 of the houses built for the miners

by the coal owners. They are houses without baths, without kitchenettes. We have had to wait until the Coal Board came to make each two of those houses into one and give decent amenities to the men who are winning our coal. Does the hon. Member for Kidderminster criticise that sort of work done by the Board? Is that what he feels the nation is complaining about?
The hon. Member asked how aggrieved people are to get redress. Again, it ill-behoves such a Member to make that statement here. How do people who have to buy from private industry get redress? I would say to the hon. Member that in the case of a nationalised industry there are far more opportunities for people to get redress than there are from any privately-owned industry in the country.
I feel that the Minister has given away almost all of his case in his latest reply, and I hope that at a later stage he will take steps to delete from the Bill the first Amendment which he has moved and carried today. The Coal Board has a very big and important job to do if it is ever to be able to produce the coal we so desperately need. The Board will find it impossible to do that job, important to the whole economic and social future of this nation, if it feels that it has always to be looking over its shoulder to see what kind of ill-founded, vicious criticism is to come from people like the hon. Member for Kidderminster and a few of his hon. Friends in the House.
I could have wished, Sir Charles, that the hon. Member had given us more than just those two examples, and could have told us that, in the annual review, he wanted to see what improvements could be made to healthier conditions for miners and their families, and what improvements could be made in the industry to attract to it the men of whom we are so desperately short. He did not mention one of those things in his speech. Those are not any concern of the hon. Member for Kidderminster. The efficiency and smooth running of the Coal Board is no concern of his.
On Second Reading he spoke of men like Jim Bowman. I just wish that we could have a few more men like Jim Bowman in the sort of job he is doing today; a man with the great experience, one who showed, as chairman of one of the area boards, that he was a man not


only of great experience as a working miner and as a trade union leader but that he was first-rate as an administrator. It seems to me that that was something that ought to have been said. The Minister talked about making the coal industry one that would attract the very best people, but he might have said that in his present Chairman of the National Coal Board he has one of the finest men that this country has ever produced.
I am very glad indeed that the Minister is rejecting this Amendment. I hope that he will have further thoughts on the first Amendment and will, at a later stage, say that he made a mistake and will give the Coal Board its head in doing the job which the nation wishes it to do.

Mr. Hirst: As one of those who put their names to this Amendment, I cannot let the debate end on the note struck by the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison). It is a false note in regard to the objects, intentions and purposes underlying the tabling of the Amendment we are discussing. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power has in some measure met us, but to nothing like the extent which was originally expected. But, as he explained at the beginning, there was some misunderstanding as to some of our views and his. That they were not very different on one point was apparent from what we heard when the first Amendment was before the Committee.
On the second point I must put it on record that I feel very strongly. I think that the Committee will agree that when I feel very strongly on something I speak quite honestly. I am very disappointed with the Minister's reply, The hon. Lady made much play with what no one more than my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) would agree were relatively small points, but she does not realise that it is very largely because we have not got the information that we ought to have that there is this concern in the party—and there is concern in the country—that all is not well.
We in this Committee are custodians of the public interest, and I do not know of any constituent who has been in touch with me who has not been greatly concerned at the situation—and why not? There would be great concern in any business. There are explanations, and fairly legitimate ones, for a large amount

of the failure in the coal industry, but we flatter ourselves in this Committee if we imagine that the public is not concerned about the matter and that we have not got something to answer for.
After all, we are all reasonable people on both sides of the Committee. We are not going to slash these things about and act in a party manner. But we do know that when boards and officials have to be answerable for their figures, statistics and estimates, when they know that these have to be discussed in advance, they are a good deal more careful in what they put up for consideration.
Some of these points may be small, but I think we are entitled to advance them nevertheless. We are entitled also, in the public interest, to ensure that the public is satisfied that Parliament is exercising that sort of function which it is expected to exercise. I hope that the White Paper will be as detailed as has been suggested tonight. If it is not, there will be a first-class row——

Sir Frederick Messer: Is that a threat?

Mr. Hirst: I hope not. It is essential that we should have these safeguards, but the situation is not as definite as it should be. There is no certainty that if we get this White Paper it will necessarily be debated. There is no likelihood that it will be selected as one of the subjects for discussion by the party opposite. Then where do we stand? We are just as much responsible in this matter as are hon. Members opposite.
I am very disappointed at the reply which we have had. I do not want to be ungenerous, and I recognise that my right hon. Friend has a very difficult task to perform. I will leave it at that. But I am not prepared to leave this debate on the false note which, I regret to say, was purposely struck by the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North.

Miss Herbison: I replied to the case which the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) took almost half an hour to make. I took up each point which he made, and nothing else.

Mr. Hirst: He was dealing in some detail with two matters, after having dealt with the general principle. After


all, the principle has been stated elsewhere.
I should like to conclude by referring to some words which appeared in the Economist on 28th April:
All of the financial implications of this plan"—
that is, "Investing in Coal"—
are balanced upon such an airy structure or assumptions that it is difficult to know where any conscientious guardian of the public purse could begin to apply an effective scrutiny.
I accept the situation as it is tonight, but I stand by those words, and the day will come when we shall have to face up to the situation.

Mr. Iorwerth Thomas: I think the dilemma in which this Committee is placed is this. On the one hand, an effort is made to restrict the borrowing powers of the National Coal Board. On the other hand, there are restrictions placed by the Government of the day upon the Coal Board's policy relating to its commercial trading. I think it would be admitted by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) that if the Coal Board enjoyed the liberties and freedoms which are enjoyed by private industry there would be no need at all to come to Parliament and worry the Government about having the necessary powers to borrow for the Coal Board's capital investment programme.
8.15 p.m.
In fact, if the hon. Member for Kidderminster and his supporters are prepared to test the position of the Coal Board by applying the yardstick as it is applied to private industry, and give the Coal Board the right to obtain the prices that it could have obtained in the market during the past five, six or seven years, we would not hear anything about these deficiencies or losses or borrowing powers.
Let me quote what would be the financial position of the Coal Board if it did apply the virtues of private industry—virtues in this respect, that they are the recognised common practices of private companies. Every trading concern in this country for the past eight years has been able to produce and dispose of its products and obtain in return the highest free market prices. We have had a recent Press report about one motor

car company which is embarking on an investment programme involving the capital expenditure of £64 million without asking anybody for a loan at all. That was possible because that company has been able to trade in the market and obtain the prevailing economic prices on the open market.
If we are preventing the Coal Board from adopting the ordinary normal commercial practices and denying it the opportunity of obtaining revenue which would enable it to finance these largescale reorganisation and development projects, I do not think that we are morally entitled to come to this Committee and argue that restrictions should be placed upon the Coal Board's borrowing powers. If we want to abolish the necessity for borrowing, we should give the Coal Board the same freedom that is now rampant in the private sector of industry. In other words, it should be self-financing.
In fact, I think it would be admitted that in the last six years the Coal Board could have asked for an increase over and above the prices already operating during that period. This is a very modest suggestion, having regard to the law of supply and demand, scarcity value and the expanding British economy. The Coal Board could have obtained at least 5s. extra on each ton of coal. In other words, on 200 million tons of coal the Coal Board could easily have obtained an extra 3d. per cwt. On 200 million tons of coal disposed of, that would have produced £50 million a year. Multiplying that by six years, the Board would have got £300 million in "the kitty" in addition to the amount which is already in it.
Take another item. Because the Coal Board does not follow the principles of commercial enterprise, it has to carry the loss on the production of coal in the uneconomic pits. Last year the Board lost £35 million working old uneconomic pits. If it had been allowed to close those pits during the last five or six years, the Board would have saved at least £210 million.
On those two simple propositions alone—charging 3d. per cwt. more than it did, and closing the uneconomic pits—the Board would have been in a position to obtain additional revenues of £510 million.

Mr. Paul Williams: Do I understand the hon. Gentleman to be recommending the closing of uneconomic pits?

Mr. Thomas: No; I am saying that because some hon. Members opposite, who have signed this Amendment, are in favour of closing uneconomic pits. The Coal Board, having regard to its concern for the social good and for the British economy, realising that coal had to be obtained at any price, has kept these old pits open. Private enterprise would have closed them.
The Committee must decide whether it will give the industry, on the one hand, freedom or, on the other hand, the right to greater borrowing powers. I hope that the Committee will reject the Amendment, because it would place the Coal Board in an unfair position to deny it the one thing it needs by forbidding it the power to invest in the way which is required.

Mr. S. O. Davies: I have listened to practically the whole of the debate today, and as we have been discussing the only industry I know anything about, I have found it intensely interesting, if not equally exasperating at times.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, West (Mr. Iorwerth Thomas) has pointed out some of the difficulties which the National Coal Board has assumed in trying to make this, at one time, utterly chaotic and largely bankrupt industry into something of national service. I have heard what has been said by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) and some of his hon. Friends, and I have protested, I hope, in the spirit which naturally would animate an old coal miner. Appalling ignorance has shown itself here today, expressed with great eloquence, in bringing pressure to bear upon the Minister and the Government in the hope and desire that more ruin and difficulty might be added to this industry of ours.
I shall not elaborate on the illustrations given earlier this afternoon by the hon. Member for Kidderminster. They were thoroughly examined and demolished by my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell). But, when the hon. Member speaks about houses, I am aware that the Minister knows something about my constituency and knows very

well that any house, apart from the common mass of working-class houses there, belong, of course, to coal owners or to iron masters who were also coal owners, We have a few fine buildings there, anything up to half a dozen in my constituency. They were all built out of, and added to the costs of, the production at the pits, without any shadow of doubt. I have worked with thousands of coal miners in my coal field; we knew that these houses were paid for before even our wages were paid; the costs of production had to be seen to first before any miner had any pay at all. I am old enough to remember conditions of that sort.
I am really sorry for some of the unfortunate references which have been made by the hon. Member for Kidderminster. May I say that more than once there has passed through my mind during the discussion of this Amendment the thought of what might have happened had the public gallery been crowded with coal miners. I am not quite certain, knowing them as I do, what their reaction would be.

Mr. Iorwerth Thomas: I know.

Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend behind me says that he knows.

Mr. Callaghan: They are much more courteous people than the hon. Member for Kidderminster.

Mr. Davies: There is a limit to the patience of the coal miner, and, so far as his work and craft is concerned, I need not apologise for the legitimate pride he feels.
The hon. Member for Kidderminster referred to Nantgarw, speaking about hundreds of thousands of pounds—not millions—which were lost there, and how the output had not reached the peak, which naturally the Coal Board had hoped for when it started reshaping that colliery, which, may I say, I know extremely well. Briefly, its history was this. It was at one time owned by private owners, by one family. I knew the man very well indeed; he was a personal friend of mine. That owner was on the edge of bankruptcy, trying to keep his colliery going, when another company came in and gave about £480,000 for that concern. May I correct my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, West?


It was not the Powell Duffryn Associate Company. The buyer was a company the name of which has been honoured in the House for a considerable time, Messrs. Baldwin & Co. Not one farthing profit was made out of the colliery, and scarcely any coal was mined during the ownership of Messrs. Baldwin. That was the kind of enterprise which the Coal Board was forced to take over.
For certain purposes its coal is very valuable. All coal is not the same, and I hope that the hon. Member for Kidderminster will take that as the first lesson to be learned about coal. All coal seams are not of the same composition and should not be subjected to the same use. However, once the coal from that pit can be got, it is extremely important in the economy of our country; it is an excellent coal for gas production and is capable of giving rise to a high proportion of by-products.
8.30 p.m.
The Coal Board knew that it was tackling an extremely difficult geological proposition when it attempted to mine coal in this Nantgarw colliery. I say with some authority as a practical coal miner and a mining engineer that I marvelled at the splendid line of approach which it made, because it ensured that the results which came from it would be the maximum possible according to the best engineering knowledge that we have.
I hope that the Committee will realise that it is no use generalising about coal on the basis of whatever knowledge we may have of any other industry, and I concede that the hon. Member for Kidderminister and some of his hon. Friends have considerable knowledge of certain industries, but they are not coal mines, and coal mining is a thing in itself. There has been much noise about the cost of coal, about the money spent by the Coal Board today and the money lost by it. The example given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington about pursuing a seam of coal under the sea in south-eastern Durham illustrates the fact that no one could know whether or not that seam might not strike a serious geological displacement, making it impossible to work the seam beyond the displacement, or, at least, only by the

expenditure of a very considerable sum of money. That is just coal mining.
I must appeal to those who do not like the nationalisation of the mining industry to try to obtain some understanding or appreciation of what was happening to that industry before it was nationalised. My own coal field was almost a mass of ruins. At least 200 collieries were closed down in the inter-war years. Pumping plants were taken away from them, and they at once became, particularly some of the older pits, vast subterranean lakes, so that the moment the Coal Board attempted to get at that coal, the workings were inundated with water running like a river along the lines of the stratification, thus adding immensely to the cost of working an area of coal that might have looked almost as though it was a virgin area. I know of examples of that in my own constituency.
I am urging the Committee not to talk so much about the money that has been squandered in this industry. I believe that an old miner like myself should have a chance to attempt quite sincerely to disabuse the minds of hon. Members opposite of the superstitions which they have, and to try to get some practical coal-mining sense into their heads.

Mr. Slater: Since I came into this House in 1950, in coal mining debates we have heard repeated suggestions from the Government side of the Committee that the mining industry should be taken out of the cockpit of politics. Hon. Members opposite have said that they did not want to interfere with the structure of nationalisation so far as this basic industry was concerned. They realised, as we do, that the basis of the economy of this country is the mining industry, and if the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) and some of his hon. Friends had taken note of reports that have appeared in the Press this week, they would have noticed that one of the most important statements ever made by a trade union leader in this country had been made by the secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers.
There have been times in this House, and in Standing Committee, when I have paid tributes to the hon. Member for Kidderminster, because I believe that in some respects he is very sincere when he talks about the need for the conservation


of coal in this country today. When the hon. Member talks of the capital allocations for the development of this major industry and of the restrictions that are to be placed on the National Coal Board in its great development plans, there comes a time when we have to take a stand in seeking to refute some of the things which hon. Members say when they speak about this industry.
On the Government side of the Committee, we are faced with Members who were attached to the mining industry before nationalisation. What was the position in the old days of the owners? The hon. Member for Kidderminster talks about paying £6,000 for an historic mansion. I am not giving any support to that, but I want to say that when we as a party sought to nationalise this basic industry, we said that we would have to pay the price for the people who were in the position to operate the industry and to run it on behalf of the nation. We had to pay the market value for those who were in the industry and were able to continue its operation.
The hon. Member for Kidderminster would have taken serious objection had he been the general manager of one of the undertakings while somebody else in the next coal field or area had had better conditions than he, although holding a similar appointment.

Mr. Shurmer: Would my hon. Friend like to know this concerning the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), who shouts about houses? Not long ago, the Minister of Defence had to sell a mansion because he could not afford to keep it on. The hon. Member for Kidderminster has bought that big mansion, in Broadway, in Worcestershire. He opened it the other day so that people could see the gardens.

Mr. Nabarro: We cannot allow that sort of personal imputation to be thrown around the Committee. I have never at any time purchased a mansion from the Minister of Defence. I have purchased a house recently—not a mansion, but a modest-sized house. The essential difference is that when I purchase a house I pay for it out of my own money, and not out of the taxpayers' money.

Mr. Slater: The hon. Member may do as he likes in buying a house, even if it

is not a mansion, if it gives him adequate accommodation and enables him to keep up his standard of life.
I spent approximately 24 years at the coal face. I produced coal at 10d. a ton. Many of the people who were attached to the industry in managerial appointments by the directors of the companies were living in palatial mansions belonging to the owners, while we had to satisfy ourselves with what were more or less slums. We were not able to buy houses when we were producing coal at 10d. a ton. One thing which can be said is that when the industry was nationalised, adequate compensation was paid to those who had brought the industry to a state from which private enterprise would never have been able to recover it had the State not taken the industry over.
The country's economic future rests upon the mining industry. If these attacks have to be made upon the industry for wasteful expenditure, as they have been made during this debate, there is little future for the industry, for discontent will be stirred up against those who say that it should be taken out of politics while, at the same time, they want to keep it in politics and will not leave it alone.
If ever there should be an uprising in the industry, there will be only one side of the House of Commons to blame. It will not be this side, which believes in the policy of nationalisation, but will be hon. Members opposite, who, although they are responsible for the Government of the day, do not believe in it.

Mr. George: In view of the type of Amendment which has been put forward, I had expected this debate to reach a fairly high standard and to involve a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of a public corporation. Instead—and I am a mining engineer of 30 years' experience—I have this afternoon seen this great industry treated in a tawdry manner. I cannot imagine that the House of Commons has ever fallen to a lower level of debate than we have heard today.
The Amendment calls for an annual examination of the Coal Board's projected development plans. My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) said that he would demand a positive and precise examination. I wonder what are his capabilities for conducting such an


examination of the Board's development plans, and how even the House of Commons can possibly conduct such an examination of the complex plans of a great industry like coal mining.

Mr. Nabarro: Would my hon. Friend permit me to correct him? I used those words, on the first Amendment moved by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power, in connection with the White Paper. I did not use them in the connection which my hon. Friend alleges. My hon. Friend is entirely wrong.

Mr. George: I disagree. I wrote down my hon. Friend's very words. He demanded a "positive and precise examination" by himself, and he told us what he had in store for the Minister if the White Paper did not come up to his expectations.
If we are to bring this mighty industry, time after time, into the cockpit of discussion in the House of Commons, I share the view of hon. Members opposite that we shall do the industry far more damage than good. As I have said, I expected this debate to reach a high level.

Mr. Hirst: It has up to now.

Mr. George: My hon. Friend may think that that is a very clever remark, but I do not think so. It is an offensive remark and not worthy of my hon. Friend.
I thought that the debate would evolve into discussion of measures of great importance but, instead, we have been dragged into discussion of the tawdriest matters in connection with the Board. We were told about the tremendous extravagance of buying a mansion for a general manager at a cost of £6,750. I am building a house now and I am learning how little I can get for that money. We should congratulate the Board on securing a good bargain for an important official. One of the troubles discussed in the Reid Report, and one which has worried us ever since that Report was issued, is that we cannot get technicians for the coal industry. I know that that is true. We on this side of the Committee should do nothing to drive technicians from the industry by criticising in a destructive manner the proper arrangements that the Coal Board is making for its senior officials. If the Board can get

a good house for a general manager, the chances are that the Board will secure a good general manager, and I wish the Board luck.
It has been suggested that an advertisement for gardeners should occupy the Minister's attention year after year. Surely we are dragging the Minister down to the level to which this debate has been dragged by making such a suggestion. I regret that a great industry in which I have spent a great part of my life should be treated in this manner in the Committee. The subject has been treated with levity today.
One of my hon. Friends spoke with great sincerity about his object in stopping the extravagant spending of public money, but I wish that we on this side of the Committee would give serious thought to this matter and weigh our words when we talk about the mining industry. We have appointed a Minister who has appointed a Board of capable men. They are not spendthrifts, incapable of looking after the taxpayers' money. The Minister has chosen the proper men for the job. Let us give them confidence that they can carry on the Board's work free from the sniping of which we hear so much these days.
This great public corporation is something comparatively new in the life of the country. Inevitably, we must have fears and doubts and misgivings about its growing up. If the corporation does not yield good results, it is likely that the fears and doubts will increase and be more vociferously expressed. The Board has not realised the promise of the emotional days of 1947. But in recent days we have appointed new men to the Board and a new chairman. We must give the Board confidence that the House of Commons is behind it in its task of managing the greatest industry in the world. We shall not help the growth of this corporation by continual and tawdry criticism such as we have heard this afternoon.
8.45 p.m.
I thought that the debate would have been on whether public corporations should be subjected to more Parliamentary control and that reasons would have been given for it. I have been to some trouble to ascertain the opinions of people who have studied this matter in past years. The public corporation has grown


up in this country since 1920 and, inevitably, there must be corrections of shortcomings as time passes. I found an interesting comment in the Acland Report of 1918, which I shall read to the Committee. It is rather a long extract, but if hon. Members will substitute in their minds the word "coal" for the word "afforestation" each time it occurs, they will find the present situation in the coal industry handled by the advanced thought of that Report. It stated, in page 62:
The afforestation policy of the State, once embarked upon, should be as little as possible liable to be disturbed by political changes or moulded by political pressure. We cannot and do not claim that it should be independent of Parliamentary control, but when Parliament has once adopted a policy … the decisions taken as that policy develops should not be taken by politicians. If grievances and difficulties arise they should be adjusted with policy and not political expediency the deciding factor. The last respect in which independence is important is with regard to funds. An element of control is essential. … This, however, ought not to be incompatible with an arrangement under which the Authority will have, during its early years at any rate, a greater degree of certainty as to funds … than is generally produced under the system of submitting annual Votes to Parliament. If there were power"—
This is important—
to pull up the authority by the roots to see how it was getting on, the results could be as serious as if the process were performed upon the trees that it had planted. The Authority, like the trees, must have a chance of striking deep roots and must, therefore, be able to plan its work for some years ahead with the certainty that it will have funds to carry it out.
There is the answer to the Amendment. Had the Amendment been discussed in the proper manner, it would have covered these issues. In that Report lies the perfect answer to the problem and I hope, therefore, that the Amendment will be rejected.

Mr. David Griffiths: I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Pollok (Mr. George). Frankly, I am at a loss to understand why this Amendment has attached to it the names of the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) and the hon. Member for Ealing, South (Mr. Maude), who have not the faintest knowledge of mining. All they believe in is finance. They do not understand that when money is spent in mining or powers are given to the Coal Board, it has to be for a long period.
However, I do not want to talk about that because I do not know much about it and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kidderminster knows a lot. Within a stone's throw from where I live in my division £13 million has been spent over the last four years and has not yet produced one penny. Hon. Members who have put down this Amendment to limit the spending power of the Minister over a period of years do not know what they are talking about. We are not talking about an engineering bench. In mining, there has to be considerable expenditure over a period of years before a penny is received in income. Therefore, hon. Members ought to have some sympathy with the Minister. [Interruption.] It would be an advantage if the hon. Member for Kidderminster, who has been so vociferous in his arguments in moving his Amendment, were not so ignorant in talking on other occasions and would pay attention to what is being said.
I want to draw attention to a fallacy on the part of hon. Members opposite. The Minister holds one of the most difficult jobs there is in relation to our economy, and yet they are preventing him from carrying it out. Who are the people who uphold the country's economy? Are they the miners, or are they the carpet baggers from Kidderminster, of whom the hon. Member is the chief? They are the miners. I do not hold a brief for the miners any more than any other hon. Member does, but I am prepared to defend them, because I know that the majority of them are doing an exceedingly good job. A very small percentage are not playing the game. But, to throw the ball back, what can be said about hon. Members opposite, not only as hon. Members, but in all phases—in industry, in social work, in economic matters, in whatever walk of life one takes? There are bigger defaulters among hon. Members opposite and in their society and way of life than in the mining industry.
At a conference last week, Mr. Horner said that the miners can break the country's economy. It would be woe betide the miners, the miners' leaders or the members of the Coal Board to do anything in that direction. They have a very responsible duty to perform.
The desire by hon. Members opposite to restrict the Minister's powers and the Board's powers in relation to investment


and borrowing is not in the best interests of the country. If the hon. Member for Kidderminster and hon. Members opposite who support his Amendment are serious, let them take it to a vote. I should like them to be big enough to have the courage of their convictions, and I should like them to carry their convictions to their logical conclusion and not let us have a sham fight.
The coal industry is a basic industry; it is fundamental in deciding whether we survive or die. The Minister needs all the assistance that can be given to him. It is no good some Conservative hon. Members—the same charge can be made against some hon. Members on this side of the House in view of what has happened in the past—stabbing him in the back. The Conservative Party always claims to be solidarity unbounded; but we know full well that that is not true. We know that there is a good deal going on among hon. Members opposite, but when it comes to the point they are all as one. That is very good for them. We are a bit more stupid than that—we do come out into the open. I would say that we are more honest.
I sincerely hope that hon. Members opposite will give the Minister an opportunity of doing what he is endeavouring to do for the industry, with all its ramifications and difficulties. I am quite satisfied that not 5 per cent. of hon. Members, including those on this side, know the difficulties which confront the mining industry and the officials of the Coal Board. I submit that it is in the best interests of the House of Commons and of the nation that hon. Members should back the Minister with all the good will at their disposal and give the Board the best assistance possible in regard to its borrowing powers.

Mr. Callaghan: We have had a long debate and I trust that the Committee will be ready to come to a conclusion. I think that the length of the debate has been justified, particularly by the speech of the hon. Member of Pollok (Mr. George), who spoke for me in every word that he uttered on this subject. I think that the whole Committee should be very grateful to him. I am grateful to the hon. Member for another reason, and perhaps he will not appreciate this quite so much. I can see his hon. Friends and

I should like him to know that for the first time this afternoon his speech washed the silly smiles off the faces of some of his hon Friends, including the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell), who has done nothing but giggle and gibe the whole afternoon.
I do not know whether the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) intends to press his Amendment to a Division.

Mr. Shurmer: The hon. Member has not the pluck to do it.

Mr. Callaghan: He voted last time and perhaps he is going to vote again, but he seems to be regarding his Amendment with more distaste as the evening goes on. He has even deserted his usual place and is now sitting in another part of the Chamber, where, perhaps, he hopes that he will not be noticed.
It is his Amendment that we are discussing. It is his job to defend it and to bring the debate to a conclusion, and I should like to hear his observations about the speech made by the hon. Member for Pollok, the Minister himself, my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) and several other hon. Members who have spoken on this subject from practical experience. I am bound to say, as one who is not a miner and who has no connection with the industry, that what has struck me about the debate is that it is those who are closest either to the administration or the working of it, like the hon. Gentleman or the Minister or past Ministers or, perhaps most of all, the hon. Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster), who have been loudest in their condemnation of the antics of the hon. Member for Kidderminster.
I think that the hon. Member's speech in itself was a condemnation of any proposal that every year we should have a debate on this subject at the level at which he introduced it. Are we really to be expected to devote our time to discussing whether a couple of gardeners should be taken on by the Coal Board? I suggest that there are plenty of other things more worth while which we could talk about. I think, however, that he pin-pointed one difficulty which the Board must face. That was his reference to the historic moated mansion which has been bought


at a cost of £6,750. I think that it must be decaying and decrepit at that price if it is a moated mansion.

Mr. Nabarro: I did not say that.

Mr. Callaghan: It is well known in industry today that because of the effect of taxation, or for other reasons, the salaries that are paid to top level managers and directors do not bear any relationship to their total emoluments. It is common practice in industry for companies to pay high executives tax-free emoluments. That must be far better known to all hon. Members opposite than to hon. Members on this side of the Committee. It is well known that houses and cars are provided.
9.0 p.m.
I want hon. Members opposite who take the view of the hon. Member for Kidderminster to consider this. Some time ago we were told of a nationalised industry the members of the board of which are paid £5,000 a year. The board advertised an appointment for a very high-level task that needed to be undertaken at £7,500 a year. It received a few replies and it appointed a man at that figure. Within a week, his company had said, "We will make your salary £10,000 a year and will also make you a director."
The nationalised industries are in danger of being forced into the position where they cannot compete for the business leaders on whom the hon. Member for Kidderminster is so keen, the people whom he thinks will save the industry, owing to the fantastic levels of remuneration and other emoluments being paid to some leaders of private enterprise. If the hon. Gentleman is to prevent these very reasonable emoluments being given

and is to hold the matter up to scorn in this Committee, as he has done today, he will not be saving the country any money, but will only be doing the industry and the country a very great disservice.

On the subject of fuel conservation the hon. Gentleman is at least sincere in his approach to the problem. He has made some very valuable contributions in that respect, but his general approach to the question of the nationalised industries is of such a character that we are very suspicious indeed of any proposals that may come from the Minister or from the Lord Privy Seal about greater accountability. We feel that the level of discussion on proposals of that sort will be of such a character that it will degrade the industry, make it unpopular with those who should be proud of it and give the public a completely wrong conception.

That is the difficulty in which we find ourselves when, indeed, we should like to see a much greater discussion, on as fair and reasonable a basis as possible, of the affairs of these industries. When the Government can control their own rebels, then there will be some chance of our doing business on the sort of issues that we should have discussed had this debate not gone on so long. I hope that this discussion will soon be brought to a conclusion so that we can take a vote on this issue. If there is a vote, we shall go into the Lobby opposite to that in which the hon. Member for Kidderminster will go, having been largely converted by the hon. Member for Pollok.

Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 280, Noes 0.

Division No. 254.]
AYES
[9.5 p.m.


Ainsley, J. W.
Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Channon, H.


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Bishop, F. P.
Chapman, W. D.


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Blackburn, F.
Chichester-Clark, R.


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Blenkinsop, A.
Clunie, J.


Alport, C. J. M.
Boardman, H.
Cole, Norman


Arbuthnot, John
Boothby, Sir Robert
Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert


Ashton, H.
Bossom, Sir Alfred
Cooper-Key, E. M.


Atkins, H. E.
Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S. W.)
Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Boyd, T. C.
Corfield, Capt. F. V.


Baldwin, A. E.
Boyle, Sir Edward
Cove, W. G.


Balniel, Lord
Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)
Craddock Beresford (spelthorne)


Barber, Anthony
Brockway, A. F.
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)


Barlow, Sir John
Brooman-White, R. C.
Cronin, J. D.


Barter, John
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)


Baxter, Sir Beverley
Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.
Cunningham, Knox


Benn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S. E.)
Burden, F. F. A.
Currie, G. B. H.


Benson, G.
Burton, Miss F. E.
Dance, J. C. G.


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)
Darling, George (Hillsborough)


Bidgood, J. C.
Callaghan, L. J.
Davidson, Viscountess


Biggs-Davison, J. A.
Campbell, Sir David
Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)




D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Powell, J. Enoch


Deedes, W. F.
Jennings, J. C. (Burton)
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)


de Freitas, Geoffrey
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)


Delargy, H. J.
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Proctor, W. T.


Digby, Simon Wingfield
Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)
Raikes, Sir Victor


Dodds, N. N.
Jones, Rt. Hon. Aubrey (Hall Green)
Randall, H. E.


Doughty, C. J. A.
Jones, David (The Hartlepools)
Rankin, John


Drayson, G. B.
Keegan, D.
Rawlinson, Peter


du Cann, E. D. L.
Kerby, Capt. H. B.
Redhead, E. C.


Duthie, W. S.
Kershaw, J. A.
Redmayne, M.


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Reid, William


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Kimball, M.
Remnant, Hon. P.


Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)
Kirk, P. M.
Renton, D. L. M.


Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Lagden, G. W.
Rippon, A. G. F.


Farey-Jones, F. W.
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Fell, A.
Leavey, J. A.
Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)


Fernyhough, E.
Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Robertson, Sir David


Finlay, Graeme
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Fisher, Nigel
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.
Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard


Fletcher-Cooke, C.
Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.
Royle, C.


Fort, R.
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Russell, R. S.


Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe &amp; Lonsdale)
Lewis, Arthur
Sharples, R. C.


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Lindgren, G. S.
Shepherd, William


Freeth, D. K.
Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


George, J. C. (Pollok)
Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Shurmer, P. L. E.


Glover, D.
Lucas, P. B. (Brentford &amp; Chiswick)
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Godber, J. B.
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)


Green, A.
Macdonald, Sir Peter
Slater, J. (Sedgefield)


Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
McInnes, J.
Sorensen, R. W.


Gresham Cooke, R.
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Sparks, J. A.


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)
Spearman, Sir Alexander


Griffiths, William (Exchange)
McLaughlin, Mrs. P.
Speir, R. M.


Grimond, J.
Maclay, Rt. Hon. John
Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)


Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)
McLeavy, Frank
Stevens, Geoffrey


Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)


Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)


Gurden, Harold
Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)
Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)


Hale, Leslie
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Mann, Mrs. Jean
Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)


Hamilton, W. W.
Markham, Major Sir Frank
Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)


Hannan, W.
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Studholme, Sir Henry


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)
Marshall, Douglas
Summers, Sir Spencer


Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)
Mason, Roy
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.


Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
Maude, Angus
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)
Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Mayhew, C. P.
Teeling, W.


Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
Messer, Sir F.
Thomas, lorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


Healey, Denis
Mitchison, G. R.
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, S.)


Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G.
Moore, Sir Thomas
Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)


Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.
Moyle, A.
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)
Mulley, F. W.
Turner, H. F. L.


Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Nairn, D. L. S.
Usborne, H. C.


Holland-Martin, C. J.
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Vane, W. M. F.


Holmes, Horace
Neave, Airey
Viant, S. P.


Holt, A. F.
Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th,E. &amp; Chr'ch)
Vosper, D. F.


Hornby, R. P.
Nield, Basil (Chester)
Warbey, W. N.


Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.
Nugent, G. R. H.
Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)


Horobin, Sir Ian
Oakshott, H. D.
Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold


Howard, Hon Greville (St. Ives)
Oliver, G. H.
Weitzman, D.


Howard, John (Test)
O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Howell, Denis (All Saints)
Oram, A. E.
Wheeldon, W. E.


Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Whitelaw, W. S. I. (Penrith &amp; Border)


Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Owen, W. J.
Wilkins, W. A.


Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Page, R. G.
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.
Palmer, A. M. F.
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Hughes-Young, M. H. C.
Parker, J.
Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.)


Hulbert, Sir Norman
Partridge, E.
Wills, G. (Bridgwater)


Hunter, A. E.
Pearson, A.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Hylton-Foster, Sir H. B. H.
Peyton, J. W. W.
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Woollam, John Victor 


Iremonger, T. L.
Pitman, I. J.
Zilliacus, K.


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Pitt, Miss E. M.



Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Popplewell, E.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Mr. E. Wakefield and Mr. Bryan




NOES


NIL




TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Miss Herbison and Mr. Mikardo.


Question put and agreed to.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. Shurmer: On a point of order. Can the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) call a recount?
Amendment made: In page 1, line 25, at the end to insert:
and (ii) in respect of advances under this section made after the expiration of the said five years shall not exceed such amount as Parliament may hereafter determine".—[Mr. Aubrey Jones.]
Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 2 and 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, considered.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

9.16 p.m.

Mr. Neal: As we are about to part company with the Bill, I think I must point out that one of the things which must have impressed every hon. Member who has taken an interest in it is the weakening process which it underwent in Committee, from which it has just emerged. Two months ago the House had first presented to it a Bill which seemed a worthy attempt to provide capital for the Coal Board and at the same time seemed an expression of confidence in those who had charge of the industry. In what I think was one of the most eloquent speeches that I have heard him deliver in the House, the Minister commended the Bill to us as an essential instrument for future coal production.
As we complete the final stage before its passage to another place, it might be interesting to recount some of the things which the Minister said on that occasion. As reported in the OFFICIAL REPORT, he said:
… to cut our investment now would be, so to speak, to blight the fruit while it was still in bud, to leave the investment half completed, and the pits half sunk, instead of going on with the entire sinking. What would be the result? Output would fall immediately, and, with the years, the fall would gather momentum, long before nuclear power could possibly come to our aid.
Later, he said that no Government could have done otherwise than deem it essential,
and I repeat the word 'essential,' to approve further plans of development, and to come to

the House in support of the added borrowing powers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th May, 1956; Vol. 552, c. 1436–7.]
What a descent the Minister has made from the high pinnacle of two months ago. It is a long time since we saw a Bill suffer such mutilation at the hands of its own author. Quite properly and logically, the Bill was intended to synchronise the borrowing powers of the Coal Board with its plan of development, as outlined in "Investing in Coal." A 10-year plan of expansion and reorganisation in the coal industry pre-supposes a concomitant availability of capital, otherwise we might find ourselves, as the Minister rightly said on Second Reading, blighting the fruit in the bud and we might find ourselves with a falling output before nuclear power could come to our aid.
As amended in the Committee, the Bill now limits the Board's borrowing powers to five years instead of to the ten years originally intended. Does this mean that the Minister has only half the confidence in the calculations of the Board and in his own advisers that he had two months ago? Are we to believe that he has recanted the magnificent appraisal of the industry which he gave on Second Reading and which we applauded? What has happened in the intervening period for him to lessen his belief in the practicability of 10-year borrowing powers for a 10-year expansion programme?
He told us that our judgment on the coal plan was a necessary prelude to our judgment on this Bill. How does he account for the somersault? If the right hon. Gentleman has had second thoughts on the subject of Parliamentary accountability and those have increased his anxiety, he should find sufficient reassurance in the Motion on this subject which the Government already have on the Order Paper. Indeed, he will recall that the Economic Secretary was brought into that debate and was authorised to announce that the Government would ensure that the Committee that was to be set up would form an important part of the House of Commons procedure.
But, Mr. Speaker, the weekend newspapers have told us why, on Third Reading, this Bill cannot be reconciled with the original document. Those of us who read the weekend newspapers were told, in a report that purported to come from the inside, that the Lord Privy Seal had


met the rebels of the Tory Party and had compromised on a five-year limit instead of the original 10-year limit. If that is correct, then, of course, the Government's policy is being directed by 23 recalcitrants. At any rate, it is apparent to any observer of these machinations in power politics that direction first goes upwards and then downwards; upwards from the rebels to the Cabinet, and then downward to the Minister.
We believe that by accepting this serious change in the effects of the Bill the Minister is not only losing his authority in Parliament but lowering his prestige in the eyes of all responsible people in the mining industry. I once said of his predecessor that he behaved like a Lilliputian when he should have behaved like a giant. This Minister seems cast in the same mould. This was an occasion when the Minister should have stamped on the rebels, and said, "I believe in the Bill as it is now drafted and I intend to see it through." Instead of that, he capitulates to the rebels, on instructions probably, from those in higher circles. I say to the right hon. Gentleman that if such capitulations continue he will not long continue as Minister.
In fairness to the Coal Board the Minister ought now to complete his volte face by asking the Board to revise its "Investing in Coal" plan and make it a five-year instead of a 10-year plan. The Board is now assured of capital for only five years—and if the Minister's hon. Friends had had their way it would have been assured of investment for only one year. What is the use of having a 10-year expansion programme and only a five-year investment programme? This Bill as it now stands is a drastic departure from the serious attempt which the Minister made, in the first case, to correlate capital expenditure with output.
During the course of the past few days I have been reading, not for the first time, a book written by a man who has some knowledge of our energy problems. In page 11 of that book I read these words: they refer to the original coal plan of the Coal Board, in 1951:
Come what may, that plan to yield 240 million tons of coal a year must be completed not in 1965—but in 1960. And the Government must provide the financial and economic sinews to see that done.

What a strange world we live in. This book is entitled "Ten Steps to Power" and was written by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro).
In page 9 of the book, speaking of the first coal plan, he says:
The first and most vital need is for the N.C.B. to accelerate their programme to reach 240 million tons, five years earlier, that is, in 1960. Instead of sinking the capital development of £520 million over 14 years it must be compressed into nine years.
It puzzles me why we should accelerate capital expenditure then and curb it now.
That book by the hon. Member for Kidderminster was written in 1952, at a time when our output was continually rising, and when the import of coal was not such an embarrassment as it is at the present time. The target which was fixed by the hon. Member for Kidderminster in that book—240 million tons by 1960—may have been right. It is not very indistinguishable from the present Coal Board target of 250 million tons by 1970.
We on this side of the House believe, to use some of the hon. Gentleman's words in his book, that the "financial and economic sinews" should be provided now. The present Government have troubles enough in the economic field without going out of their way to look for them in the coal industry. One is surprised that they should have done so by allowing the rebels in their party to provide these difficulties in the coal industry.
The borrowing powers of the electricity industry are £1,200 million. The borrowing powers of the gas industry are £450 million. Yet these industries, dependent as they are upon the coal industry, have to depend upon that industry with its now limited borrowing powers for their raw materials. I think that it is the meddling of the anti-nationalisers, of whom we have heard a good deal today, with the coal industry which has done more harm to this industry than the Communists have done in the coal field, and in all conscience that has been bad enough.
I have never subscribed to much of the contents of the Fleck Report, and, like some of the top-level people in the Coal Board, I am not genuflecting before that altar. But there is one significant thing in the Fleck Report on the reorganisation of the coal industry which I would commend to hon. Members who have spoken against the Bill today. The Fleck Report


says, in one significant paragraph, that this industry ought to be allowed to settle down and do its job; and that indicates what is the matter with the industry. All kinds of power politicians are interfering, and think that they know better than the Minister. They think that they have a better plan than Millbank or Hogarth House. In consequence, this industry has not the chance to get along. It is spending too much time trying to escape the criticism of those who know so little about it.
The members of the National Coal Board are the appointees of the Government. Would it not have been better and fairer for the Government to have said, "We have confidence in you as members of the Coal Board. We have confidence in your plan for the industry. We will provide the necessary capital. In return, we expect you to provide the coal".
We afford this Bill a qualified welcome; though we could wish very devoutly that its original powers had been retained before it goes to another place.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Dudley Williams: First, I should like to say that I feel that there has been an unfortunate protraction of our business on this Bill, with the result that we have lost the debate on the appointment of a Select Committee to examine the reports and accounts of the nationalised industries. That is most regrettable. It is a great pity that we could not finish this debate a little earlier so that we could have got on to a consideration of that important Committee, which might have done a great deal of good in the future. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who is not in the Chamber at the moment, will find it possible to provide for a debate very soon on that important matter.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Neal) made great play with a statement to the effect that my right hon. Friend has, in fact, given way to my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) in inserting as a limit on advances a term of five instead of 10 years, as originally envisaged. I could not quite follow the remarks of the hon. Member for Bolsover. He seemed to be saying, I think, that there was a five-year financial programme and a 10-year expansion programme.
I do not think that he has got that quite right. I think my right hon. Friend made quite clear what was happening in his Second Reading speech, and if the hon. Member wishes to get the facts right, he might refer to what was said then by my right hon. Friend:
The Coal Board has not, of course, asked me to lend it the whole £1,000 million. It will find two-thirds of that sum from its own revenues. It has asked for added borrowing power representing, at most, £400 million. The Board has put it that this borrowing is necessary to see it over the great heave of investment in the next five years. Beyond the next five years, as investment dwindles and as the depreciation provisions from past investment improve, it is estimated that the Board will be entirely self-financing."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th May, 1956; Vol. 354, c. 1440.]
It is not fair to my right hon. Friend to say that he has run away because of something said by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster. My right hon. Friend is not the man to do that sort of thing. All he has done is to write it into the Bill, as was originally intended, quite rightly with the idea of carrying his party with him. I do not think there is anything wrong in that. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster is not in the Chamber at the moment.

Mr. Callaghan: We are not.

Mr. Williams: My right hon. Friend has just made the intention clear by his Amendment at that point.
We are approaching the end of the passage of the Bill through this House. I hope that in due course it will have a rapid passage through another place. I believe that the overwhelming majority of the House—and I really mean the overwhelming majority—is behind the National Coal Board in carrying out this huge capital programme. I hope that we shall not have a continuation of one side nagging at an industry because it has been nationalised, and I would rather like to see the other side not always talking about what would happen if it were not nationalised. I think that whenever that takes place, it causes great dissension in the industry and very genuine worry among the people who work in it, and I do not think that it does the country any good.
I hope that a message will go out from the House of Commons tonight to the effect that we wish the Coal Board every


success in carrying out this huge investment programme. There is not the slightest doubt that there has been under-investment in the coal industry of this country for a great many years. I know that this reinforces the arguments which hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite have made from time to time, but I think it is much better that one should admit these things and realise the importance of this huge investment programme.
In the O.E.E.C. Report on Europe's Growing Needs of Energy, published quite recently, there was the bald statement that there had been considerable under-investment in the coal industry of the United Kingdom from 1930 to 1947. It is absolutely vital, if we are to maintain our position as an industrial nation and continue to use coal at all, that we should do everything we possibly can to see that we get coal as cheaply, as efficiently and in as great a quantity as possible.

Mr. Callaghan: I agree with very much of what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I wonder whether he has also noticed that the Report points out that the level of investment at present in the E.C.S.C. countries is at least twice as much in the coal industry as it is in this country, so that there is still a lot to do.

Mr. Williams: I cannot recall the statement to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but, if it is true, we have to do everything we can to see that the Coal Board gets on with the job.
This is a good plan, and I hope that we may, by the expenditure of this capital sum, get a considerable number of new pits and open up new seams from which it may be cheaper to extract the coal. A tremendous number of pits in this country really ought to be shut down as uneconomic; in many cases, they are being kept going, losing £4 per ton on the present average price of coal, in order to get a small amount out.
I should like to say, in conclusion, that I am glad that this Bill has been introduced by the Government, and that it has almost finished its passage through this House. I sincerely hope that the Coal Board, with this sum of money, will be able to put the coal industry on a firm basis.

9.38 p.m.

Mr. Palmer: The hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) complained a little about the fact that we have not reached the business which many of us anticipated and even hoped we should reach this evening about Parliamentary control of the nationalised industries. I do not think he should complain—perhaps he did not intend to complain—about this side of the House in that matter. He should make his complaint and argue it out with his hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), who has now conveniently returned to the Chamber for him to do so.

Mr. P. Williams: A number of hon. Members who put their names to the controversial Amendments to the Bill have deliberately withheld from speaking with the idea of helping the Committee, and I think the hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. Palmer) is a little less than generous to those of us who, though we felt quite strongly about this matter, tried to help the Committee.

Mr. Callaghan: So strongly that they did not vote.

Mr. Palmer: It may have been that, in this case, discretion overwhelmed valour. It is not always the case that all those who put their names to Amendments such as those in the name of the hon. Member for Kidderminster vote for them.

Mr. Nabarro: If the hon. Member will permit me, may I say that he has missed one essential point, which the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) has also missed? My right hon. Friend the Minister, in replying, made it perfectly clear that the affirmative Order which I sought in my Amendment was going to be brought in in the first year, in the second year and the third year, and under the five-year limitation of the Bill will be brought in in the fifth year. It was because only the fourth year is omitted that I felt constrained to abstain from voting.

Mr. Palmer: I must leave the House to judge.
It does not seem to me that during the course of the day either the Government Front Bench, in the person of the


Minister, or some of his occasional supporters have exactly distinguished themselves. The right hon. Gentleman showed a tremendous weakness in inserting the five-year provision into the Bill. Hon. Members opposite did not show a great deal of courage either when, in the last Division, they declined to vote even for their own Amendment.
There has been what can be not unfairly described as a great deal of shabby intrigue upstairs on the Bill. It has taken a very long time for the Bill to reach the Committee stage. I do not know how long ago we had the Second Reading——

Mr. Callaghan: It was two months ago.

Mr. Palmer: That is an extremely long time. There have been discussions, debates, leakages to the Press and all the rest, and rather doubtful work has gone on upstairs. The House can, however, take consolation from the fact that our debates will have been very useful if they assist to remove from the public mind the idea that the coal industry is a dying industry. The fact is that the industry is an expanding and dynamic industry and it would be an excellent thing if this could be more generally understood.
The Committee stage debate has been flexible and has ranged widely over a number of Amendments, but I was interested to note that at no stage was resurrected the argument, used on Second Reading, that the coal industry was finished and would soon be superseded by nuclear energy. It should be appreciated that in 1975, even if the present, programme goes according to plan, nuclear energy will give the country the equivalent of only 40 million tons of coal a year, which is roughly equal to the present coal consumption of the electricity industry alone. By 1975, in fact, electricity will need 100 million tons of coal.
It has been suggested in some quarters that instead of pursuing the capital construction programme for the coal industry, we should instead further expand the nuclear energy programme. I am all in favour of moving ahead with the nuclear energy programme, but it should be remembered that some of the nuclear energy stations which are being erected, such as the first, at Calder Hall, and those which are likely to be erected are, for the

moment, from the electrical generation point of view, extremely primitive stations. If, instead of allowing a reasonable period for research and development, we now constructed a number of nuclear power stations on the present model, it is possible that within five or 10 years they would be hopelessly out of date.
I was delighted that the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) referred to the O.E.E.C. Report, which many of us have seen, and I should like finally briefly to quote from the Press handout concerning that Report. It states:
… in view of this rapid increase in the dependence of Western Europe on imported energy, with its inherent risks and the certainty of increasing prices, the Commission feels that member countries, bearing in mind both economic and security considerations, should make a determined effort to develop further their indigenous production of all forms of energy. All reserves of energy will be needed in the future, and coal will be the mainstay of the energy economy in Western Europe for many years to come.
That is why I and my hon. Friends welcome the Bill.
We feel that we have done our part, as the constructive people we are, to assist the passage of the Bill, and if there has been any obstruction or difficulty it has come from those hon. Members opposite who nominally pretend to support the Conservative Party and the Conservative Government.

9.46 p.m.

Mr. P. Williams: I intervene to make two short points, the first of which was made also by my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) in relation to the item of business which has been unfortunately swamped. I hope sincerely that it will not be lost, because it seems to me that it would have been the most important part of the day.

Miss Herbison: The hon. Member should blame his hon. Friends.

Mr. Williams: There may be blame, but there can be debate as to where the blame lies.

Mr. Speaker: Not on the Third Reading of this Bill. We must consider the Bill as it stands.

Mr. Williams: I beg your pardon, Sir. Reference has been made to a number of speeches which had protracted the debate and I thought that it would be in order


to refer to the protraction on the other side of the House.
I welcome the concession made by the Minister, although it was not really a concession. It was merely a writing into the Bill of what was said in the document, "Investing in Coal". We can welcome that as making the Minister's intentions clearer than they appeared to be on Second Reading. Furthermore, we can look forward to seeing the White Paper which my right hon. Friend is to present, because that is the only way, as the Bill stands, which will enable the House to see that the activities of the Coal Board are controlled in such a way as to meet the needs of the consumer and also the taxpayer. On that basis, I am more than willing to welcome the Bill.

9.47 p.m.

Mr. Callaghan: I wish to take only a few minutes to make an appeal to hon. Members opposite. We on this side of the House would like to co-operate in passing the Bill by ten o'clock and we all want to hear the Minister. I do not want to take too much time now, but I should like to say one or two things, and I hope that we shall hear the Minister and get the Bill passed by ten o'clock.
It is interesting and amusing to hear hon. Members opposite describe the effect of their Amendments. To some it is an important victory and to others a trifling and nugatory concession. It reminds me of old Kaspar who, when the sun was setting, did not know what it had been all about but the verdict was that it had been a famous victory. We have waited two months for the Bill. Our verdict must be that the Minister is frightened by a shadow whose moustaches are drooping very much at present.
I wish the Coal Board well in its new endeavours. I think that with the sum of money which Parliament is placing at its disposal it has a fair opportunity of doing a good job for the nation. I have every confidence in Mr. Bowman and his team. He is one of the most outstanding industrial leaders of the day. The House should give him its support in all that he and his colleagues have undertaken. The miners have a big task, and I know that they will face it.
In case references to oil, nuclear energy and the rest should deceive anybody, I

say that coal will remain the backbone of the nation's fuel and energy policy in the next 20 years. We want all the coal and all the miners that we can get, and the miners must have conditions which are equal to those enjoyed by workers outside the industry. We wish the Bill well. We speed it on its way and I hope that it will be passed by ten o'clock.

9.50 p.m.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: This Bill has been somewhat dogged by misunderstanding from the beginning. During the course of the Second Reading debate the misunderstanding came from some of my hon. Friends behind me. Now, in its final stage, I find the misunderstanding in front of me. I find it distressing to discover that just when enlightenment is dawning behind me, darkness descends in front.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Neal) used most harsh words. He said that I had mutilated the Bill, that I had performed a somersault and had perpetrated a volte face. All these harsh words sprang from the belief that the original intention was, as he thought, to synchronise the plan with the borrowings. There was never any such intention. There was never any reason why the borrowings should be synchronised with the plan. The plan is a 10-year plan. The demand for borrowings from the National Coal Board was for five years. The grant was for five years, as my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) rightly said. The only change made in the Bill makes clear what was, in fact, always the intention.
As for the effect of the Amendment introduced this afternoon, it has one effect as I see it, and one effect only. It makes possible a review in Parliament of the course of the plan halfway through its life—five years out of the 10 years.

Mr. Callaghan: So who has won?

Mr. Jones: I see no objection to Parliamentary review and Parliamentary scrutiny, although I agree entirely with the forceful and wise remark of my hon. Friend the Member for Pollok (Mr. George) that when we debate these matters we must make an effort to make the debate worthy of the occasion.
My object throughout has been to ensure proper Parliamentary scrutiny


while, at the same time, giving the National Coal Board certainty for the prosecution of its investment. Naturally, I consulted the Coal Board about the Amendment which I moved earlier today. The Board was satisfied that it created no uncertainty and made no difference in the position as they saw it before the Amendment was tabled. I consider, therefore, that my objective of reconciling accountability with certainty has been accomplished. To that extent nothing has been altered one iota.
For the rest, the most vivid impression left on my mind in the course of these debates has been this: I am not at all sure that the House generally has realised how great and how urgent is our demand for energy. We are politically, all of us, committed to the concept of high employment. High employment implies an expanding economy and that, in turn, implies a demand for energy growing at a pace unknown in this country since the middle of the last century.
Many hon. Members have suggested to me methods alternative to investment in the coal industry, whereby we might secure our supplies of energy—fuel economy, nuclear power, African coal——

Sir Robert Boothby: Hydro-electric power.

Mr. Jones: Yes, we need them all. But the point about them all is that they are supplements to investing in coal, not

alternatives. We need them and we need to invest in coal, too. It is, I think, one of the weaknesses of the coal industry, both in the pre-war period and indeed in the post-war period, that there has been insufficient investment. It is now my belief that the National Coal Board is much more resolute than it has been in recent years about future investment. Here, I would like to endorse the tribute paid earlier to the Chairman of the Coal Board by the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison). I believe that under the present leadership the plan will be resolutely prosecuted, and I take it that the appointment of a Director-General for Reconstruction is a token of that intention.
I thank hon. Members for the courtesy that they have shown me in the course of this debate, and I join with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) in wishing every success to this investment plan for the coal industry.

Brigadier Terence Clarke: I have absolutely no confidence whatsoever in the Coal Board, none in the Minister and absolutely none in the miner. I reckon that I represent 75 per cent. of the people in the country, including all the housewives, and that is all I want to say.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Orders of the Day — COMMON MARKET, WESTERN EUROPE

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. E. Wakefield.]

9.56 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Rippon: I wish to raise tonight the question of the action which the Government have taken and the attitude which they have adopted in the year which has elapsed since June, 1955, when the foreign Ministers of the six countries of the European Coal and Steel Community—Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands—met at Messina and expressed agreement in principle on the establishment of a common market by stages in Western Europe.
The conference, as the House will be aware, agreed a procedure involving the carrying out of preparatory work and study upon a number of specific questions by an inter-governmental committee prior to the holding of one or more conferences to draw up agreements and arrangements. It was further specifically agreed at Messina that the Government of the United Kingdom, as a member of Western European Union and an associate member of the European Coal and Steel Community, would be invited to participate in these deliberations.
Therefore, the first question which I would ask the Economic Secretary to answer is: when and how that invitation was conveyed to the Government and what was the response? As I understand the position, British experts took part in the earlier discussions but their participation ceased when the inter-governmental committee, which met in Brussels under the chairmanship of M. Spaak, had finished dealing with the technical examination of the problems involved and had come to the drafting of the report.
If that is the case, then the second question arises as to why the Government, while not necessarily committing themselves in any way, could not have continued to participate in the deliberations and to express their preliminary views upon the report, and particularly upon

the proposed methods for implementing it.
The fact is that the Spaak committee has now completed its complex and lengthy report and events are moving fast. On 8th, 9th and 11th May the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community met at Strasbourg and adopted, with only one dissentient vote, a resolution going a considerable way towards defining the form of the common market and laying down general lines of policy.
On 29th and 30th May, the Foreign Ministers of the six countries which signed the Messina Resolution met in Venice and agreed—apart from the reservations which they made about the position in regard to overseas territories—to adopt the Spaak report as a basis for negotiation. They further agreed to convene a conference, which opened on 26th June, in Brussels, to draft the necessary treaty.
It is encouraging that at Venice it was decided in keeping with the Messina Resolution that the proposed draft treaties—on Euratom as well as the common market—would contain provision for British participation as well as for participation by other nations. So the door is still open for British participation either as a full or associate member, but the real question remains as to how far it is in our interest and those of the other nations concerned that we should remain on the side line until the treaties have been drafted and signed and we are presented with a fait accompli.
It is not just the simple question of deciding in principle whether we are for or against a common market. May it well not be the case that, while a common market in one form might be acceptable, in another it might not?

It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. E. Wakefield.]

Mr. Rippon: Questions of timing and procedure, of safeguards and exceptions, have all to be considered, as have, indeed, all the questions which were formulated and posed in the main body of the Messina Resolution.
It seems that in the course of the full year which has elapsed since the Messina Conference the Government must have formed a view on the general principle. It must also have considered such questions as, for example, whether a free exchange zone or a customs union is the better system from our point of view; what distinctions ought to be drawn between agricultural and industrial products; or what would be the position of overseas countries linked with member States. Surely these are matters which must be considered and upon which a view must be formed before, and not after, treaties are drawn up and signed.
Consequently, I ask the Economic Secretary when the House can expect to have a statement of the result of the Government's deliberations during the course of the year upon the matter of the common market, a vitally important matter which is at present being debated and thrashed out in the Parliaments and other assemblies in the rest of Europe. No one denies that, in the words used by the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day, this is "a very large and difficult question," but it may well be said that if once we were agreed on the principle, then the difficulties, in a famous phrase, would argue themselves. Indeed, they are being argued now, and there are signs that they are reaching the point of being resolved.
Whatever the complexities and the difficulties are, the issue ultimately boils down to this. Either we want the present or some other common market proposals to succeed, or we do not. If we want them to succeed, surely it is in our own interests and the interests of everybody else that we should play a full and effective part in the preliminary stages. As The Times said in a leader on 22nd June:
… if Britain believes that the development of European economic unity (in which she would in considerable measure participate) would be valuable it is better to say so clearly and explicitly than to wait for others to act. An assurance of British collaboration would bring more support to the new movement in the Community countries themselves and would have an important effect on the attitude of the French Assembly, for example.
There is an indication of that in the newspapers today. The Times went on:
Thus it could be decisive for the success or failure of the venture.

If, on the other hand, we merely hope that these proposals will come to nothing—I do not for one moment suggest that the Government would take such a negative attitude—it is clear that we may well have to face up very soon to the implications of them succeeding without us. If they succeed without us, then at best we shall be in the position of staying out or coming in on terms which we shall have had no part in negotiating or settling. At the worst, we shall find ourselves excluded altogether from the great reciprocal advantages enjoyed by the participating countries.
I raise the matter tonight not to air my own views on the subject, but to hear those of the Government. However, for my part, I believe that the stability of the Continent of Europe must depend in large measure on our securing larger economic units than have existed in the past, and a common market would, I believe, do much to play a part in a general lowering of traiffs, a breaking down of trade barriers and the promotion of freer trade. Moreover, as The Times said on 22nd June, the advantages of a common
… market, in which Britain might participate, speak for themselves.
There remains to be considered—I have left it to the last because it is clearly the most important consideration—what are the implications of the common market proposals for the Commonwealth and the Colonies. It is obviously necessary that there should be full consultation with the Commonwealth on these matters. As I understand the position from the Answer which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor gave to my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir R. Boothby) on 19th June, the implications of these proposals are now being discussed by the Commonwealth Prime Ministers. It is very important that this House should get its relations with the Commonwealth and with Western Europe, and theirs with us, in the right perspective.
In that respect, I do not think that I can do better than refer to the Guildhall speech of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 30th April, 1948, in which he said:
We in the United Kingdom are not merely a Power geographically situated on the western edge of Europe. We are also the heart


and centre of a great Commonwealth and Empire. For us the welfare of the Commonwealth and Empire must always be the first consideration. That is paramount, not only for reasons of loyalty and sentiment, but because the British Commonwealth is in fact today an indispensable influence for the maintenance of world peace. The question we have to consider, is therefore, is there any fundamental clash between the conception of ourselves as the heart and centre of the British Commonwealth and Empire and the conception of ourselves as a member of a Western European Union. I am convinced that there is not. The dilemma is, in truth, largely an artificial one. I would even go further and would say that under present world conditions we can more acceptably play our part in our relationship with our great partners overseas, and with the Colonial Empire also, if we have succeeded in jointly rebuilding the political and economic life of Western Europe, and in giving to these areas a measure of prosperity and stability and a true feeling of lasting security.
I cannot anticipate tonight, nor, I imagine, can the Economic Secretary, the outcome of the deliberations which are currently taking place between the Commonwealth Prime Ministers, but I would ask my hon. Friend the following specific questions. Can he say what consultations have taken place with the Commonwealth nations through the normal channels in the full year that has elapsed since the Messina Conference? Were they consulted about the invitation extended to the United Kingdom at the conference to join in those deliberations, and, if so, with what result?
Will he not agree, at any rate, that if the Commonwealth nations are, in principle, in favour of British participation in one form or another, it is important that we should play an active part at an early stage and before any treaty is concluded, particularly as it is clear from the reservations which we made at the Venice Conference, on the subject of the way in which overseas territories would be brought into these matters, that there is still plenty of room for maneouvre there?
Finally, can my hon. Friend give any assurance at all that there will be an early statement of the Government's policy on the common market in the light of the meeting of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers, because, while I think we all recognise the weighty considerations which militate against direct participation in the common market and the complexity of the practical difficulties

involved—no one underestimates these—will he not agree that it would be gravely detrimental not only to our own interests, but also to those of the Commonwealth and Empire if we were at any time to find ourselves economically isolated from the rest of Europe?

10.10 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Holt: I rise only for a few moments. I think there will be plenty of time for the Minister to reply, and for the hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir R. Boothby), who also wishes to speak.
I would underline what the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Rippon) has said. I entirely agree with every word he said. I hope that the Government are giving the closest consideration to this matter. It is one of those peculiar subjects on which Free Traders and Protectionists are united. As the world is developing at the moment, huge free-trade markets are arising in Russia, the United States, India and China. There is very little future for little entities with barriers round them of one kind or another.
If Europe is to take any part or have any influence in the world in the future, and if the institutions of civilisation are to go on developing and playing a powerful part in the world, we have to make a step in the direction of greater unity. Many of the suggestions that have been put forward for unity in Europe before have revealed many difficulties for us if we were to participate in them. No doubt there are great difficulties in the idea of the common market.
If the Government feel that they cannot participate in the common market as at present conceived they must, at an early stage, indicate what they are prepared to do and to what extent they are prepared to co-operate in the kind of thing that is suggested on the Continent. We shall do a grave disservice to European unity if we are not prepared to make suggestions, to back them actively and to get put forward our point of view that we are genuine in the matter and want to move onward. I agree entirely that, although there are difficulties, they are not insuperable in relation to this matter.
Just under 50 per cent. of our trade is done with our Commonwealth and just over 30 per cent. with Europe. If we could find a scheme which would increase


further the trade between these two groups at the moment, we should do something which is not only for our benefit but greatly for the benefit of Europe. I hope that, particularly at this moment, while Commonwealth Ministers are here, this matter is receiving the urgent attention of the Conference. I am fortified in the knowledge that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has in the past been a great exponent of increased co-operation in Europe. I hope that the Government will not lag behind in this respect, as they appear to have done in some other European policies, and that we shall receive information at an early date of what their positive policy in this direction is to be.

10.14 p.m.

Sir Robert Boothby: I rise to say only a few sentences. The subject which has been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Rippon) is in some ways the most important of those that confront this country.
I have a melancholy feeling sometimes that history may repeat itself. We did not participate in the discussion which led to the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community. That was a great pity, and we may still live to rue it. We did not participate in the discussion which led to the E.D.C. The result, I am certain, was the collapse of the E.D.C. altogether, carrying with it great dangers for the unity of the Western world.
Now, are we participating to the necessary extent in the discussions about the common market? I do not know. I have not been very encouraged by the attitude of the Government during the past two years. At Strasbourg we produced a thing called the "Strasbourg Plan". It was designed to marry the economic interests of Western Europe and of the dependent and associated territories overseas. It would have set up not only a central investment bank but also a system of secondary preferences which might easily have been worked out. It was dismissed, rejected out of hand; and that was the end of that.
Then we had the Messina Conference, which at least resulted in a representative of Her Majesty's Government going to attend discussions about a common

market, but I am not aware that that representative indicated any possible line on which we might associate with the common market in Europe.
I have never liked this conception of a six-Power Europe; it is too small. As the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Holt) has said, we are confronted by Asia, Russia, China, India and, on the other hand, the United States. Those are continental economies of continental scope. In this age of mass production, how can these separate little nations of Europe really hope to survive without really close economic co-ordination? It is not possible. I say that there must be more than six nations participating; it must be Western Europe as a whole, and that can be achieved only on one condition—that we take the lead. If we lay down the terms the Scandinavians will come in, and then, with our overseas territories, we shall have the eminence of an economic unit which can stand on its own feet and face the dollar area on what I might call level terms.
These are terrific matters, and they cannot be discussed in a short Adjournment debate at a quarter past ten at night. This matter is of tremendous importance, and I wish to ask my hon. Friend if we are now in consultation with the committee discussing the possibility of a common market in Europe? What I do not want to see is a draft treaty presented to the Parliaments of the six countries—in the same way as happened about E.D.C.—which we must all either accept or reject. If that happened then, once again, the proposal would fall to the ground. We must tell them on what terms we will come in because, if we take the lead, the proposal will succeed, and if we do not take the lead it will not. If it involves, for the time being, omitting agriculture and horticulture, I say we should go ahead with it, and I believe the other countries will come along. Let us indicate what we want done if we are to participate. I believe that if they really see that we are prepared to come in and take the lead they will virtually allow us to write our own ticket.

10.17 p.m.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle): This has been a necessarily short but an excellent debate, and I am sure that the House is


extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Rippon) for initiating a discussion on this subject this evening.
I would say at once to my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir R. Boothby) that I am not in a position tonight to make any announcement about Government policy on this subject. I do not think that anyone would think it other than remarkable if a junior Minister, speaking in an Adjournment debate at twenty minutes past ten, were to make a major policy announcement on one of the most important policy matters that we have before us. We are here dealing in the truest and fullest sense of the word with a major political matter. I always think it very unfortunate that we tend to think of the word "politics" in the sense of party politics, because this will be a major policy decision which could have very great consequences for Britain, Europe, and indeed for the whole free world.
May I briefly remind the House of what has happened? The present plans for a common market had their origins in a conference held in June, 1955, at Messina by representatives of France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. I expect the House will recall the terms of the communiqué issued after the Messina Conference, in which the six countries agreed, in principle, to work towards the establishment of a common market among themselves and to promote certain common action in the sphere of transport and power. They also took the first steps towards the establishment of Euratom, a European organisation for nuclear energy, although I recognise that that question falls outside the scope of this debate.
In calling a special conference in Brussels, under the chairmanship of M. Spaak, to prepare a report to give effect to their plans, the six countries invited observers from certain European institutions, and they also offered a special form of association in their studies to this country. The correspondence was published as a White Paper in July last year. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in accepting the invitation to take part in those discussions, drew attention to our anxiety that the work of other organisations, notably

O.E.E.C., should not be duplicated, and to the fact that there were special difficulties for us, to which I shall refer in a moment, in participation in a common market.
The report of the first Brussels Conference was subsequently presented by M. Spaak to his colleagues in April, 1956. Although our observer had attended the deliberations of M. Spaak's party, the report itself was a matter for the six Governments concerned. It was subsequently considered at a special conference of their foreign Ministers in Venice at the end of May this year, and adopted as a basis for negotiations destined to prepare a treaty to set up a general common market. A further conference met in Brussels on 26th June, again under the chairmanship of M. Spaak, to negotiate the treaty.
These negotiations will take some time to complete, and I must tell the House that my right hon. Friend does not look for any early accomplishment of this treaty; but the report on which it is to be based, which has been made public, makes quite clear that considerable progress has been made since the original Messina Declaration of May, 1955.
We have not been directly represented, even by an observer, in the later stages of this work, but we have been kept in very close touch with what has gone on. We recently received with very great satisfaction an assurance by M. Spaak that he will be scrupulously careful to keep all interested Governments informed of the work through the medium of the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation. To some extent, I think, that answers the last point put to me by my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire. M. Spaak has given us an undertaking, for which we have consistently pressed, that those Governments interested will be kept closely informed through the medium of O.E.E.C., which is an organisation with which we are very closely concerned and of which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is chairman.

Sir R. Boothby: Does not my hon. Friend think it would be better if we had somebody sitting in rather than relying on O.E.E.C.? I am frightened that the common market will go the same way as did E.D.C.

Sir E. Boyle: I realise that, and I intended to finish my speech with two or three sentences dealing with the point. I hope that I shall be able to reassure my hon. Friend about it.
There are, of course, special difficulties for Britain about a common market because of our other commitments. Our commitments are world-wide, linking us, on the one hand, to the Commonwealth and sterling area and, on the other hand, to all countries of O.E.E.C., as well as—although I am not sure that I like to mention it in this company—to all signatories of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Indeed, for a country only approximately a quarter of whose trade is carried on with Europe, we cannot possibly be unmindful of the wide spread of its interests.
The common market is based on the principle of the gradual abolition of all tariffs within the area and the establishment of a common tariff against all countries outside it. No one would deny the advantages which the countries inside the area should gain—that is to say, a great single market within which industry could be developed to its best economic use, possessed of great bargaining power in its negotiations against outside competition. We realise that completely.

Mr. Holt: rose——

Sir E. Boyle: I cannot give way; I have only a few minutes left.
In our case the changes of policy which we should have to adopt to take part in the project in its present form would certainly not be easy to reconcile with our existing policies and our obligations to the Commonwealth. I am sure there is no need for me to emphasise in this debate the point about Imperial Preference.
Turning to the question of consultation with the Commonwealth, I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South that we have paid close attention to that matter, and we shall certainly do the very best we can to carry the Commonwealth with us at all stages in whatever decision we take. I cannot say much more than that, but I assure him that my right hon. Friend is fully seized of that point.
The House should realise that there are many weighty questions still unresolved, and many difficult features of the common market as at present envisaged. We

cannot, at this stage, be sure that the venture will succeed. Some of these features may yet be discarded, but at present it has been suggested that not only should there be a single external tariff, with no internal tariff, but that this should be associated with freedom of movement of labour and of capital. Moreover, the supporters of the common market believe that it will be necessary also to harmonise economic policies, and indeed social policies as well, with the prospect of great pressure towards ever closer integration.
All these are points of very great importance and, as I say, we are very glad indeed that the Messina countries have agreed, through O.E.E.C., to keep us informed of their progress. We sincerely hope that they will be able to develop their ideas in such a way as to benefit all the members of this organisation, and to strengthen rather than to weaken the organisation itself.
I cannot, tonight, go any further in stating the policy of the United Kingdom, but what I should like to say to the House and, indeed to the country generally, is this—because I think it is important on this point to be quite explicit. In making this speech tonight I am quite deliberately—and my right hon. Friend has authorised me to say this—not ruling out any possibilities at all for the future. There is no question at all of the Government having closed their mind on the subject. I am not putting up, as it were, a smoke screen to conceal the fact that the Government have made up their mind in a negative direction, and I would ask the House to believe my sincerity there. We are studying the question, and it is precisely because of its importance, and because so much is involved and may be at stake, that my right hon. Friends do not believe that this decision can be made in a hurry.
In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire I would only say that we do not want to associate ourselves too closely at this stage and then be open later to a charge of bad faith. We must, first, make the basic political decision. I cannot tonight say how soon my right hon. Friends will be in a position to make a statement to the House. All I can say is that the time is not far ahead when we shall have a Recess. Believe it or not, there are some Ministers, perhaps, who do some amount of work, and even


a certain amount of thinking during the Recess, and I know that I am absolutely safe in saying that there is no subject which will more attract the attention of the Goverment during the months ahead than this.
We fully realise that there is a major policy decision to be made here. We are completely open-minded and will be guided solely by what we conceive to be the proper harmony of the interests of Britain, the interests of the Commonwealth, the interests of Europe and of the free world as a whole.

10.28 p.m.

Mr. John Biggs-Davison: I am very glad indeed to hear that Her Majesty's Government remain open-minded on this vital question, and the House is indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Rippon) for raising the question, even at this late hour.
My reason for speaking for just one moment is that I was recently at a Brussels conference—not the Brussels Conference—on the subject of the common market in Europe. I had the opportunity of meeting and conversing with some of the Continental statesmen who are responsible for having prepared this project for a common market based, in

the first instance, on the six members of the European Coal and Steel Community. The impression with which I came away was that just as my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary has not closed his mind so those statesmen have not closed their minds either.
They are willing to consider how the project can be improved. Many of them are willing to consider how agriculture can be treated differently from industry—and it should be treated differently—particularly as so many of them are anxious that any kind of economic integration which come about on the Continent of Europe should provide for the participation of Britain—and for the participation of Britain as the centre of the Commonwealth. I believe that the opportunity has recurred for Great Britain to take the leadership of Europe and to form that Europe-Commonwealth combination, perhaps in the spirit of the Strasbourg plan, to which my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir R. Boothby) referred in his remarks.

The Question having been proposed at Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.